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SIDNIEY LANIER. 



ne LITERATURE of 
THE SOUTH 



By 
Montrose J. Moses 



Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 
PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK 



^.I^n 



Copyright, 1910 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Published September, 1910 



©CLA27]9b5 



To the memory of my Father 



FOREWORD 

The title selected for this book is one wherein a 
policy of exclusion could be systematically adopted; 
for, while there is a distinctive literature of the South, 
there is and has been much literary activity in the 
South which has contributed little or nothing to the 
sectional development. Many of the Southern manu- 
als and estimates reveal too generous an inclination 
to include within their pages the names of those whom 
sentiment conjured up beyond the real measure of 
their importance. A local notoriety, a limited influ- 
ence, an occasional inspiration, a sporadic paper — all 
these tend to swell into misguiding proportions a con- 
scientious list of Southern writers. Many there have 
been of pleasing talents, and of exceptional powers as 
far as they have gone — but somewhere the amateur 
spirit soon reveals their momentary character. 

The greatest enemies of any literary movement are 
those who carry adulation in criticism to an excess. 
Southern literature has, until recently, found itself 
handicapped through a deplorable lack of any discrim- 
inating standards by which to judge it. However uni- 
fied the fundamental interests of this country may be, 
the South — as well as any other section — has had a 
growth peculiarly its own. We would not deny the indi- 
viduality of New England, even though that indi- 
viduality be recognized as an element only in the 
evolution of the nation. So it is with the South — 
a section wherein the social forces have conserved 
a distinct type of people upon its soil — one which, 
temperamentally as well as geographically, claims for 
itself a difference from its neighbors which is deeper 



viii FOREWORD 

than dialects or superficial prejudices, and which is 
coincident with the life that fostered it. 

By the literature of the South, the idea to be con- 
veyed is, that certain conditions have conduced to 
develop a species of writing which is born directly of 
these social conditions. The civilization of the Old 
South — the re-forming into a New South upon the 
basis of a large inheritance — these two civilizations, 
different from their neighbors in temperament, in cer- 
tain problems of vital moment, in the structure of 
their social fabric, have produced an unmistakable 
literature, duly reflecting the mental, moral, and emo- 
tional view-points of time and place. 

In the following pages an attempt has been made 
to indicate this close connection existing between the 
Southern life and its literature. Only those dominant fig- 
ures are dwelt upon who had it within them to sound 
a sustained note — if they were poets; to stem or to 
encourage the tide of public or sectional feeling — if 
they were public men ; to create or to reflect the true 
atmosphere of locality — if they were novelists. To 
apply a rigorous critical standard is the only just way 
of approaching an extensive subject. And there is 
no denying that the field of Southern literature is a 
large one. Yet if we discard that body of writing 
which, though sincere, is beset by the stupendous sin 
of mediocrity, if we remain persistent in dwelling 
only upon that writing which affects or has influenced 
Southern thought and culture, we shall find, perhaps 
in some cases to our surprise, that the development of 
Southern letters has not been insignificant. The great- 
est hindrance to a clear understanding of this fact has 
been, undoubtedly, the provincial manner in which that 
literature has been regarded by the people of the South 
in general. Only within very recent years has a com- 
parative method been adopted, wherewith the South 
has been made to recognize that its literature, as an 



FOREWORD ix 

expression of life, possessed an organism distinctly 
its own. The culture of the North has always been 
vigorous because of its plastic nature; it was influ- 
enced by forces outside of itself — by coming- into 
greater contact with diverse people, whether in this 
country or abroad. The culture of the South was, 
during the old regime, well-nigh fixed by the con- 
servative lines of a classical education. But the new 
outlook changed all this; to that culture which the 
South has always had, a larger interest is now added, 
which transcends sectional barriers. 

It is to be hoped that the following studies will 
emphasize this close contact of letters with the life of 
the South. The aim has been throughout, however, 
to escape the stigma of sectionalism. The South, 
per se, retains its individuality — ^but its significance, 
as part of the nation, should have a wider under- 
standing. For it will be found that the South has 
contributed to American literature, both by example 
and by accomplishment; that it has been original, 
even though much of its writing is imitative. The 
literature of the South is the literature of a people, 
and those people — after an evolution from the aristo- 
crat to the democrat, taken in a wider sense — are 
themselves Americans as well as Southerners. 

The bibliographies contained in the Appendix will 
bespeak my indebtedness to the many sources of an 
historical and social nature. It is a pleasure here to 
express my deep appreciation of the unfailing courtesy 
given to me by the authorities of Columbia University 
Library, who have placed at my disposal every facility ; 
in especial, I would thank Mr. Frederic W. Erb, 
whose personal interest and watchfulness have done 
much to enrich my bibliographies. To the St. Agnes 
Branch of the New York Public Library I also wish 
to extend my grateful acknowledgment. 

In a work of this nature, the student is necessarily 



X FOREWORD 

dependent upon that encouragement which comes from 
correspondence and consultation. It is a privilege 
to indicate in this manner the many services rendered 
me in the preparation of this work by Mr. Edgar 
Gardner Murphy, Professor W. P. Trent, Mr. Henry 
Lanier, Mrs. Frank Jordan, Judge J. B. Gaston, of 
Montgomery, Ala., and Mr. J. Walker McSpadden. 
Finally, I cannot pass by the constant advice and un- 
failing interest of the members of my family, whose 
unswerving loyalty to the South is not to be ques- 
tioned. 

M. J. M. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTE8 PAGE 

Foreword vii 

COLONIAL PERIOD 

Table of Authors 

I. Social Forces: The Character of the 

Southern Pioneers; Class Distinc- 

. TiON ; the Cavalier and the Puritan 

Spirits in the South ; Geographical 

Distribution of the People ... 3 

II. Early Colonial Authors: From Cap- 
tain John Smith to Ebenezer Cook 17 

III. Later Colonial Authors: From James 

Blair to Patrick Trailfer ... 50 

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
Table of Authors 

IV. Social Forces: Life in the South; a 

Consideration of the Plantation ; a 
Picture of the Landed Proprietor 
AND the State of His Culture . . 91 

V. The Constructive Statesman : From 
Washington and Jefferson to Mar- 
shall 107 

VI. Revolutionary Literature: Poetry and 

Poets 143 



xii CONTENTS 

ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 
chapter page 

Table of Authors 
VII. Social Forces: The Gentleman of the 
Black Stock and His Culture; His 
Politics; the Menace of Slavery; 
THE Rise of States; the Aristocracy 
and the " Poor Whites " ; the Era 
OF Agriculture 163 

VIII. The Voice of the Old South ; Being 
A Consideration of the Literary 
Claims of Orators — Typified in Cal- 
houn, Clay, and Hayne .... 191 

IX. Local Sense and Native Humor . . 218 

X. Pioneer Novelists: Simms, Kennedy, 

Tucker, and Carruthers .... 239 

XI. Southern Poetry and the Cavalier 

Spirit 255 

XIII. A Southern Mystery : an Author with 

AND WITHOUT A COUNTRY — POE . . 276 

CIVIL WAR PERIOD 

Table of Authors 
XIII. Social Forces: The Problems of Se- 
cession ; the Orators of Secession ; 
Characteristics of the Confeder- 
acy; THE Stress of War; the Fall 
of the Old Regime; the Force of 
Leadership; the New South amidst 
the Ruins. Intellectual Demarka- 
tions caused by the War. The Old- 
Fashioned Novelists: John Esten 
Cooke, St. George Tucker, Augusta 
Evans, and Others 295 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER ' PAGE 

XIV. Southern Poetry of the Civil War: 
Being a Consideration of Confeder- 
ate Lyrics 339 

XV. The Southern School of Poetry; I. 

Lanier 358 

XVL The Southern School of Poetry; IL 
Hayne, Timrod, Ticknor, and Mrs. 
Preston 384 

THE NEW SOUTH 
Table of Authors 
XVn. Social Forces: The Fall of the Old 
Regime; the Significance of Recon- 
struction; a Change of Economic 
Base; the New Problems and their 
Critics : George Cable, Edgar Gardner 
Murphy, Thomas Nelson Page, and 
Others; Education in the South; 
Negro Leadership: Booker T. Wash- 
ington, DuBois, and Others ; the Re- 
sults; THE Economic, Social, and 
Political Status of the Negro; the 
Future of the " Poor White " ; the 
Emigrant ; Industrialism ; Demo- 
cratic Tendencies 417 

XVIII. The New South: Social Justice and 
THE Law; the Historic Sense; Evi- 
dences OF a Cultural Initiative; 
Creole Culture ; Mountain Culture ; 
Folk-Song and Folk-Lore; the Ne- 
gro IN Literature; the Novelists of 
Locality; the Later Claims of Lyri- 
cism ; Summary 449 

Bibliography 475 

Index 501 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Sidney Lanier Frontispiece 



OP p. 
Page 



Colonel William Byrd 66 

Henry Watterson 228 

John P. Kennedy 248 

William Gilmore Simms 264 

Edgar Allan Poe 276 

W. L. Yancey 306 

Augusta Evans Wilson . 330 

Paul Hamilton Hayne . ^gg 

George W. Cable ^20 

Thomas Nelson Page 428 

Joel Chandler Harris 436 

Mary N. Murfree 444 

James Lane Allen 4^2 

Ellen Glasgow 464 

John Fox, Jr 472 



I 

COLONIAL PERIOD 



TABLE OF AUTHORS 



I579-I632 . 


. . John Smith . . 


. . Virginia 


I586-I632 . 


. . George Percy . . 


. . Virginia 


I6I0 


. . William Strachey 


. . Virginia 


I585-I6I3 . . 


. Alexander Whitaker . 


. . Virginia 


1570-1635 . . 


. . . John Pory . . . 


. . Virginia 


I577-I644 . 


. . *George Sandys . . 


. . Virginia 




Father Andrew White 


Maryland 


1656 . 


. . . John Hammond . . , 


Maryland 


1666 . 


. . . George Alsop . . . 


Maryland 


1676 . 


. . fNATHANIEL BACON 


. . Virginia 


1708 


. . . Ebenezer Cook . . . 


Maryland 


1656 . 


. . . James Blair . . 


. . Virginia 


I675-I7I6 . 


. . Robert Beverley . . 


. . Virginia 


1724 


. . . . Hugh Jones . . . 


. . Virginia 


1674- 1744 • 


. . William Byrd . . 


. . Virginia 


1689-1755 . 


„ . William Stith . . 


. . Virginia 


I7I4 . . 


. . John Lawson . . . N 


orth Carolina 


1740 . . 


Alexander Garden . . S 


outh Carolina 


1740 . . 


. . Patrick Tailfer . . 


Georgia 



*Here also one must consider the minor work of R. Rich, J. 
Rolfe, and Col. Henry Norwood. 

fin connection with Bacon, the Burwell papers should be ex- 
amined carefully. 



CHAPTER I 

SOCIAL FORCES 

The Character of the Southern Pioneers; 
Class Distinctions; the Cavalier and the 
PtJRiTAN Spirits in the South; Geographical 
Distribution of the People. 

The South has ever been bound up in its economic, 
poHtical, and social interests. Conditions have molded 
character, environment has fused varied elements, 
climate has affected temperament, until the type, the 
tradition, the mental attitude and the verbal expression 
have become products of the soil on one hand and 
dutiful servants of the civilization on the other. The 
social forces as they apply to the South particularly, 
rather than to America at large, are such that they 
stretch far back into colonial beginnings; during this 
early period, it is true, the observation was purely an 
external one, but if the chronicles, reports, and letters 
of the adventurers, colonizers, and royal representa- 
tives be examined closely, a distinct economic con- 
sciousness will be traced, no longer measured in terms 
of dependency upon a foreign influence, but in terms 
of local interest and independent development. 

Nearly every feature typical of Southern life and 
distinctive of Southern history becomes evident dur- 
ing the colonial existence ; the cohesive substance later 
seems to have been political sanction. No historian 
can define the boundaries of the human stream of 



4 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

life; the adventurous spirit of the explorer passes im- 
perceptibly into the practical spirit of the settler. The 
Anglo-Saxon blood surged through the veins of the 
pioneer; the Teuton checked the spread of the Latin, 
and with a v^onderful power of absorption added 
unto himself new blood and ever-increasing energy. 
By their fruits shall they be known, and so the 
economic indications which were accentuated, even in 
the colonial era, drew the first line of distinction be- 
tween the North and the South. In part, this was 
due to climatic differences, to political unlikeness ; but 
it was equally as much the result of the different 
motives of colonization, and the dissimilarity of social 
institutions brought over from the mother country. 
It is hard to say where the colonial writer first sounds 
the American note ; it is still more difficult to tabulate 
those social forces which gave rise to a distinctively 
Southern Literature. 

For that reason, the critic, while resorting to the 
historical method, must be wary for fear of losing the 
literature in the life. The Southerner as a type is very 
much greater than the Southerner as a literary artist ; 
in fact, nowhere can we afford to lose the man in the 
writer, so strong is his inheritance, so individual his 
personality, so typical his action, so peculiar his cast 
of thought. The art value is in no way to be com- 
pared with the life value of Southern Literature. 

Considering the limitations placed upon the South 
by time and circumstance, limitations which at first 
were not strong enough to prevent the development 
of the constructive statesman, but which later 
changed the constructive into a destructive statesman ; 
considering the fact that the incubus of slavery, at 
first only an economic factor, affected the whole life 
of a people from within, likewise modifying the 
dominant practical interest of that life, agriculture — 
the life, one must confess, exceeded its limitations by 



COLONIAL PERIOD 5 

a very superior, a very rare type of manhood and 
womanhood. Its culture was distinctively Old 
World; its law, its rehgion, its social demarcations, 
were British long after the political severance which 
Virginians did so much to bring about. Slavery 
helped to keep the South in a feudal state. 

The fusion of peoples is one of the mysteries of 
nature ; it is the dominant force which kept the South 
of colonial times from being no more nor less than 
a checkerboard upon which the moves of English, 
French, and Spanish colonizers were prompted by the 
state of European politics. There were two facts 
about England's territorial acquisition: first, there 
was a determination to keep the French of Louisiana 
and the French of Canada from meeting across the 
Ohio and Illinois territory ; and second, there was the 
Anglo-Saxon spirit of the pioneers, of whom none 
were greater than the English traders who pushed 
across the Allegheny ridge, almost to the very picket 
fences of the French trading posts. The Teuton 
spirit persisted for a long while with the Latin, but the 
English were not content with the territory between 
the mountains and the sea. Colonial history indicates 
the manner in which the French and Spaniards left 
their impress upon Southern soil; to-day, New Or- 
leans, Mobile, and St. Augustine bear visible traces; 
the Creoles have developed an independent literature 
which has never been adequately valued, though the 
life has afforded picturesque opportunity to Cable. 

The presence of the Latin did not materially en- 
hance the fusion of which we speak ; it occurred in the 
unifying of the various elements of the Teutonic 
race. This fusion hardly involved the Latins at all; 
as a nation our foreign diplomacy in its first years 
was concerned with ridding the country of continental 
ownership; consciousness of an economic demand 
opened, however unconstitutionally, the vast stretch 



6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of the Mississippi Valley; the Spanish possessions in- 
volved us in war, and our final acquisition did not 
reflect credit on our transaction, though it gave us 
undisputed possession from ocean to ocean. It is 
rather significant that up to the period of the Civil 
War, the South in its territorial boundaries was very 
unsettled. The Southern states carved from the orig- 
inal colonies were born only after a travail which in- 
volved the political protection of slavery through a 
political distribution of the balance of power, and 
which also impressed the South with the need for 
more land to satisfy the extravagant demand of one 
absorbing product — cotton. " The Civil War," writes 
Dr. Ballagh, " was but a logical sequel to the economic 
development of the i8th century." 

From the very outset, the South was pledged to an 
agricultural life; the easy cultivation of the land, the 
beneficent, almost prodigal influence of the climate, 
together with the commercial policy of England 
tended to make it the only course. It was likewise in 
consonance with the natural inclinations of a landed 
gentry, whose large estates and plantations encour- 
aged a wide dispersion of population and a conse- 
quent lack of city life. The rural character of the 
people, therefore, had much to do with the general 
measure of culture which flourished, despite the land 
system and the labor system, but which, in its classical 
character, in its unprogressive character, was not hos- 
pitable to experiments in thought, any more than its 
economics welcomed time-saving devices to compete 
with its slave labor which represented, per se, not only 
labor but invested capital. 

In all these things which the South was. New Eng- 
land was not ; thus early we can see how unevenly the 
future exactions and benefits of tariff, of any protec- 
tion of things outside of the raw material, would fall 
on the Southern trader — an inequality which was one 



COLONIAL PERIOD 7 

of the chief causes of irritation in ante-bellum congres- 
sional debate. The land system encouraged extrava- 
gance and lavishness on a broad scale. The Southern 
planter was a center unto himself ; owning large tracts 
in the tidewater district, he most generally had his 
own wharf from which his product was shipped, to 
which his English purchases were sent. This neither 
encouraged road building, nor intercourse, nor con- 
sequent exchange of ideas ; he would cultivate perhaps 
fifty acres out of a probable fifty thousand acres com- 
prising his estate. 

The colonial South is very largely the early history 
of Virginia; here were not only rooted English tra- 
ditions, social, economic, and religious, but likewise 
there emanated from her those streams of emigrants 
which were to enrich the land, even as she gave of 
her own accord from her grants to make other terri- 
tories. Unlike New England, she came to the west- 
ern world, not in dissent from the Established Church; 
but, in turn, around her and within her were to be 
found those other sects which later helped, through 
a less rigid aristocratic society, to differentiate the 
Upper from the Lower South, In Virginia were de- 
fined those gradations of land values which made the 
tidewater ownership a mark of social distinction, even 
as, to a lesser degree, they so became in the Black Belt 
district after the invention of the cotton gin.* 

A study of the several forms of colonial establish- 
ment, of the distinctive characteristics of " home rule " 
during this initial period which distinguished France 
from Spain, and both from England, and finally of 
the Indian difficulties which beset the pioneers, may be 
dispensed with as belonging to the historian. We need 
to concern ourselves chiefly with the migration and 
fusion of peoples, which affected the character of the 

* See my article, " The Social Life in the Lower South/' in 
" The South in the Building of the Nation." 



8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Southern pioneers, raising- class distinction on a trans- 
planted feudal system — a system which inculcated 
those narrow prejudices of a merely external nature, 
and which put upon the mind certain formal strictures 
inimical to freedom of thought and to originality of 
view-point. The Southerner was great despite his en- 
vironment; he was great even though oligarchical 
tendencies, inherent in slavery and in isolation, were 
a constant source of temptation, as well as a personal 
menace. 

Emigration in colonial times was prompted by the 
adventurous spirit in part, but chiefly because of the 
political difficulties besetting nations on the Continent 
and because of the religious dissensions which fluctu- 
ated between Protestantism and Catholicism. Every 
change among the nations which affected the map and 
history of Europe, had its consequent effect upon the 
colonies. Escaping persecution, the 'colonists were 
far from reaching a land of religious toleration, and 
many a bitter experience had to be gone through be- 
fore Patrick Henry's plea for religious liberty in the 
1 6th article of the Declaration of Rights (1776), or 
Jefferson's more far-reaching efforts in the same cause. 

The South was peopled through pioneer restless- 
ness, through economic necessity, through lack of reli- 
gious toleration. In broad statement, the dispersion 
took three courses: into North Carolina from Vir- 
ginia, thence in a southwesterly direction; across the 
Appalachian mountains, opening the Middle West; 
and again to the southwest through the Mississippi 
Valley. The movement into Kentucky was the begin- 
ning of the march to the Pacific slope. 

The comparative historian will say that one of the 
fundamental differences between early Virginia and 
Massachusetts was " the greater homogeneity of the 
English stock in New England," due to the predomi- 
nance of a middle class. Indeed, it would seem at first 



COLONIAL PERIOD 9 

as though the aristocratic South would allow of no 
intermediate life ; but not only did the migration from 
the tidewater district take away from the inherent 
strength of, although not at first affecting, the landed 
prestige, but it likewise afforded opportunity for 
energy which otherwise would have become stagnant. 
With the trend of population toward the southwest, 
even though social and economic traditions were 
carried from Virginia, there began that democratiza- 
tion of character, if not of political structure, which 
Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy analyzes so carefully. 

The tidewater aristocracy was pledged to the Estab- 
lished Church; so assured was this fact in the minds 
both of the people at home and abroad, that the Vir- 
ginia clergy grew lax in their morals and careless in 
their practice of doctrine. Perhaps the earnestness and 
fervor of the Dissenters, who sought entrance into Vir- 
ginia and so obtained strong foothold in the Lower 
South, found advantage in this deplorable condition. 
In the over-accentuation of Cavalier romanticism, the 
modern reader is prone to lose sight of the fact that 
Puritanism was a strong factor in the formation of 
Southern civilization. 

The struggle for religious liberty in Virginia was a 
long and bitter one. At the same time that we treas- 
ure the remark of Governor Berkeley concerning free 
schools and printing, as a measure of educational en- 
couragement in 1650, it were as well to bear in mind 
the reasoning of Governor Gooch (1738) who, while 
welcoming Presbyterians and Quakers into the Shen- 
andoah Valley in his desire to people the territory 
west of the Blue Ridge, was none the less calculating 
upon placing a defense between himself and the In- 
dians. As one authority claims, the Presbyterians 
were a "buffer" sect, who had to pay toll to the 
Church of England. 

The sectarian movement has been a strong one in 



10 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the South ; it was not only one of the prime impulses 
of colonial diffusion, but it likewise was one of the 
chief sources, later, for the extension of educational 
matters. The Scotch-Irish strain which to-day per- 
sists in the Shenandoah Valley was not confined alone 
to that section, and Presbyterianism itself soon be- 
came somewhat of a formidable proposition for the 
Established Church to consider. Virginia history is 
full of pre-Revolutionary petitions to eliminate legis- 
lation against sect, and to prohibit the persecutions 
which were of common occurrence. As late as April, 
1774, Monroe wrote to Bradford, of Philadelphia: 
" The sentiments of our people of fortune and fashion 
on this subject are vastly different from what you 
have been used to. That liberal, catholic, and equi- 
table way of thinking, as to the rights of conscience, 
which is one of the characteristics of a free people, 
and so strongly marks the people of your province, is 
little known among the zealous adherents to our 
hierarchy." We shall see later from what type of 
mind emanated the tendency to criticise the South 
from within her very civilization. 

"While in breadth,'* writes Mr. Hamilton, "the 
Southern character may owe more to Virginia, in in- 
tensity it looks to Carolina. The later common- 
wealth of Georgia had an independent English origin, 
while Kentucky and Tennessee were the second 
growth, the new start beyond the mountains, of the 
new Americans." Across the borders of Virginia, 
cutting through virgin forest, came those who, on one 
hand, were unwelcome dissenters, and who, on the 
other hand, were pushed away from the tidewater 
district because of inability to obtain land holding. 
There were in the South three ranks of peoples de- 
scribed in terms of their economic location : the large 
plantation owners ; the men either dependent in a 
feudal manner upon an overlord, or else relegated to 



COLONIAL PERIOD ii 

soil upon which it was a struggle to raise plentifully ; 
and the scrub settler, who either took to the moun- 
tains or was pent up in mind and body among the 
pine barrens.* The North Carolinian therefore was 
tempered more democratically, a rougher element of 
civilization in comparison with the South Carolinian 
below, or the Virginian above ; nor did he possess the 
flavor that existed to the immediate South, brought 
by the Huguenots, who arrived after the Revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes ( 1685). 

The wave of population pulsed South along the At- 
lantic coast, injecting strains of the Scotch-Irish, the 
German Protestant, the French Huguenot into the 
web and woof of Southern life. This power of as- 
similation is the vital force of Anglo-Saxon inherit- 
ance. The Lutheran Swiss, preserving their German 
tongue, persisted in Carolina ; the Presbyterians, some 
of whom were known as backwoods Virginians, 
moved with the current; redemptioners increased the 
flow. It was a mixture of social, economic, and relig- 
ious causes that populated the South. Georgia, asylum 
for dissenters and for the social outcast, received like- 
wise Salzburgers, Lutherans, and Moravians, and first 
nurtured the propagators of Methodism. Wherever 
the Spaniard touched, wherever the French, with their 
effective methods of colonization, blazed a trail, there 
were left permanent and salient evidences of Catholi- 
cism'. The Jesuit as explorer, as pioneer, is a most im- 
portant figure. 

The establishment of a Catholic community to the 
north of Virginia did much to raise suspicion of the 
Protestant English, who often brought forward accu- 
sations against Maryland's sympathy with the French. 
Probably this opposition was due equally as much to 
the jealous realization of a lack of political privileges 
which were extended to the Calverts by the Crown. 
Writing of this palatinate, the historian calls attention 



12 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

to the preservation therein of ancient Teutonic cus- 
toms. 

It is not to be inferred that this migratory activity 
occurred at concerted times in the colonial period 
alone; after the Revolution, after cotton in its way 
offered through the cotton gin the same extensive 
opportunity for trade that tobacco had offered in Vir- 
ginia, the stream percolated southward from Tennes- 
see. To repeat, the South geographically during the 
initial period, when its extension or restriction meant 
either the maintenance or curtailment of its political 
influence, when the strength of its social system de- 
pended upon the conviction that slavery had a right 
to spread, was not a fixed quantity. In the South, 
territorial adjustment began at a critical national 
moment. 

It has been pointed out by social students that the 
Calvinism of colonial New England was more con- 
ducive to originality of mental attitude than adher- 
ence to an already established form; that the North- 
erner came to a virgin land to make a different law 
rather than to uphold traditional law which in the 
South was one of the requirements of colonization. 
The Puritan with his Protestant spirit, was, according 
to Professor Shaler, " leading a great body of men 
out of this castellated state of mind toward more 
modern ways of thought. The feudal system, al- 
though it had noble qualities, was essentially hedonis- 
tic; it was based on an elevated savagery; under its 
dominion, men were forced to shape their lives mainly 
on personal considerations." It will be seen, when the 
time comes to discuss the state of colonial culture, as 
typified in the establishment of schools and the publi- 
cation of newspapers, how the laws of economics thus 
practiced, of society thus founded, and of religion 
thus transplanted and thus imposed, reacted upon the 
character of the Southern colonist who was to become 



COLONIAL PERIOD 13 

the Revolutionist. The contest for religious liberty, 
the demand for just representation, while actuated by 
the increase of local interest, were nevertheless repre- 
sentative of the basic characteristics of Englishmen, 
rather than of typical Southerners or Americans. It 
was not a difficult matter, under the social system, for 
city life — the little that existed — to be predominantly 
aristocratic; Charleston very early surpassed Wil- 
liamsburg in that respect. It was most logical, in the 
face of the wastefulness of natural advantages, that 
the planter, early imbued with the mistaken idea that 
labor was not for the gentry, should grow proud, con- 
servative, aloof: content with a primitive neighbor- 
hood, improvident in his trading method, unfriendly 
toward the idea of colonial commerce, and more de- 
pendent — because of his isolation and his disregard 
for the artisan, the small farmer — upon English sup- 
plies. 

No weakness of character encouraged the condi- 
tions which mark the colonial South; neither did the 
colonists themselves premeditatedly determine the 
trend of emigration. The myriad forces of life, the 
immediate necessities of existence shaped the course. 
However speculative one may regard the statement, it 
is very probable that had the Puritan, as Professor 
Shaler believes, settled in the South he would have 
fallen into the same channels — the soil, climate, and 
physical demarcations determining the line of least re- 
sistance. Slavery was marked for the South simply 
because New England conditions were unfriendly to 
its firm establishment. As an adventurer, as a repre- 
sentative of English interests, the first settler came 
more in the spirit of visitor, of observer, of speculator, 
than of resident; his literary expression was wholly 
practical, wholly external; his spiritual requirements 
were secondary to his physical needs. His conscience 
was not disturbed like that of his far-off neighbor in 



14 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Massachusetts, who gathered with his fellows in 
meeting houses, and upheld the rigorous life rather 
than ease and comfort. The New Englander did for 
himself; the Virginian relied on his agent for trans- 
actions, never certain whether the value of tobacco 
would cover the expense of his needs, and wasting 
much more because of his dependency on others than 
he would have had to pay for his dependency on 
himself. 

The colonial writer was hardly literary in his 
product; he saw with a keen eye, sometimes a vivid 
eye; if he showed feeling, it was the accident of the 
occasion rather than the art instinct. He was an Eng- 
lish observer, until he became established and until his 
personal interests were bound up in the soil around 
him. Then his writing exhibited an interpretation of 
affairs in terms, not of English advantage, but of 
colonial advantage; then he sounded a note which 
indicated clearly that he was identifying the rights of 
Englishmen closely with the rights of the colonists, 
while gradually the political gulf widened. 

Colonial literature in the South is of more historical 
value than of literary excellence ; it is rich in fact and 
attitude, it is warm in personality. Occasionally, the 
English culture of the 17th century predominates 
over the inventory style, and the reason is usually 
found in the life, the education of the authors. As 
a general rule, each represented a particular phase of 
colonial life; none of them typified any great expres- 
sion of life or art; their imagination hardly went be- 
yond their immediate vision, but their humor was 
often of quaint and human quality, debarring a coarse- 
ness characteristic of the age. Some of the literature 
was purely the transplanted commodity, here and 
there tempered probably by the environment, as in the 
case of Sandys. 

The student must take this period in bulk as an 



COLONIAL PERIOD 15 

English beginning, on new soil, of some literary ex- 
pression; to brush it aside would be a loss to social 
estimate, for in Blair there is the epitome of the best 
colonial activity in the direction of culture; in Byrd, 
the symbol of the landed gentry, one detects, from his 
biography and from his personal manuscripts, all the 
charm and all the evil underlying colonial life. The 
men who are discussed in the following section, in 
their several ways, represent expression in different 
fields, and, what is more, indicate a certain local dif- 
ference. Never intended for literature, such writing 
is of value because being English it is part of the 
American inheritance. Until the Civil War laid the 
country in devastation, this English stamp was evident 
visually; even to-day the Southerner has not lost his 
Anglo-Saxon bearing. 

A source book of American Literature cannot 
ignore these men, even though, in the realization that 
France plays small part in American character, the 
historical writer gives but small consideration to the 
body of French material produced by the French ex- 
plorer and settler, especially the letters of La Salle 
and Iberville, and the numberless French histories 
and memoirs. These records, these diaries, these 
" relations " are not dull reading, though they often 
repeat; they present the land attitude, the slave atti- 
tude, the plantation attitude in all their diverse ele- 
ments. In its incipiency you will detect the Southern 
attitude, in so far as social forces molded the South- 
ern life. It is not strange that the practical account 
should dominate over fanciful imagination; nor is it 
hard to determine why the intensity of spiritual ex- 
pression was greater in Massachusetts than in Vir- 
ginia. The Bible influenced whatever style existed in 
New England; literature was there handed out with 
direct injunction and personal effect. 

Professor Tyler has epitomized the incentives to 



i6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

writing- in the colonies, incentives which in themselves 
suggest a legitimate reason why in the primeval forest 
there was scarcely reflected any of the literary bril- 
liancy and spontaneity at home. The colonist was as 
yet not acclim.atized ; he needed to communicate across 
seas; the terms of his crown privileges attached 
him legally to the mother country; he had to defend 
the new land against evil report; he had to satisfy 
English curiosity as to the strange customs of the In- 
dians; he had to describe the natural benefits close at 
hand. He was an observer on the surface, and did 
not immediately take root. As I have said, a study 
of the colonial life in the South, economically, socially, 
and spiritually, will clearly indicate the ingredients of 
Southern civilization as they developed up to the Civil 
War. With a sufficient historical knowledge, one will 
instantly detect how these forces are further reflected 
even in a body of literature which professed to be 
nothing more than it was — a record of beginnings. 



CHAPTER II 

EARLY COLONIAL AUTHORS 

From Captain John Smith to Ebenezer Cook 

The colonial author, evolved from the social condi- 
tions and social changes thus traced, cannot be said to 
present a very prepossessing figure as far as original- 
ity of thought or imaginative scope are concerned. 
He was as much an Englishman in his manner of ex- 
pression, as though he had never left his home. It was 
only when the adventurer, seeking treasure in an un- 
known land, finally became fixed to the soil ; when ob- 
servation of the natural richness and of the strange 
character of the natives had given way to a species of 
economic and social writing — when, in other words, 
sentiment itself became attached to locality in the new 
world, that the colonial author might with impunity 
be considered a native product. 

The literary value of much of this early material 
is a very negative one, if taken by itself. But if taken 
as a supplement to the conditions out of which it 
grew, the reasons for an extensive consideration will 
become apparent. For there is as much difference 
between the view-point of Captain John Smith or 
William Strachey and of the Reverend James Blair or 
Colonel William Byrd, as there is between the first 
adventurer and the landed proprietor; and there is a 
corresponding difference in the writings of each. 

What we must chiefly seek in the literature of this 
period are the freshness of attitude, the naive child- 
ishness with which impressions were taken in and re- 
corded; we must not hope to detect any special striv- 

17 



i8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ing after art, for in most cases we will find the author 
making excuses that his pen is so devoid of all the grace 
and subtlety which marked the Elizabethan writers. 
And yet, though the colonial author was not so very 
different from the Englishman at home, he was placed 
in the midst of an environment whose possibilities 
were yet unsounded ; he was practically alone in a land 
of natural beauty and of lurking mystery. He had 
come — unlike the Northern colonist — for adventurous 
reasons only, and at first with no idea of making a 
home. His writing was not prompted by any great 
religious fervor, nor did his conscience tinge the tenor 
of his thoughts. But in the main, the channels 
through which he expressed himself are seen to be not 
so far removed from those of the New Englanders. 
Like them, he was away from home ; like them, he was 
dependent upon English rule ; like them, he soon real- 
ized that he was growing to regard his settlement 
with a degree of pride, defending it against maligners 
at home and abroad. He was not a religious dis- 
senter, therefore his faith need not trouble him, except 
in so far as he soon found it necessary to provide min- 
isters from England. The intolerance affecting Vir- 
ginia was, however, not cast aside heedlessly by what 
so many historians call the Cavalier spirit of the 
South; it did have its effect upon the people, and as 
we have already shown, Puritanism was one of the 
strong elements, though not the dominant one, mold- 
ing the Southern character. 

Therefore, the forms of expression fell naturally 
into the channels of practical interest rather than of 
creative imagination — expression founded upon obser- 
vation and action, not upon contemplation. These men 
were travelers, hence letters and reports must neces- 
sarily be sent home; their laws had their sources 
across seas, hence recommendations had to be penned. 
As to that local pride already noted, Professor Moses 



COLONIAL PERIOD 19 

Coit Tyler finds that in defending his land against 
evil reports, the colonial author developed the one dis- 
tinct class of colonial writing — American Apologetics. 
He may, in his descriptions, in his records, in his his- 
tories, have written with some facility, and in his ser- 
mons have revealed some spiritual intensity. In his 
poetry, poor as it is in quantity and quality, he may 
have shown some slight native color, feeling and 
humor, — but he sounded no original note. In fact, 
the sum total of all this literary activity might just as 
well have been done in any other land — he still would 
have remained the English adventurer of the sixteenth 
century. It is in the defense of himself that we detect, 
for the first time, a new note which might be called 
American. 

The commencements of our Southern literature and 
our colonial history are simultaneous. In both in- 
stances, the first definite figure to be met with is Cap- 
tain John Smith (1579-1632), a hardy, rough, 
weather-beaten soldier of extensive experience, who 
was no less proud of his campaigns than he was of his 
authorship. With a warrior's freedom, he has colored 
his narratives, yet, withal, there is a sincerity that lends 
charm, and a directness that is simple and effective. 
The reason he did so much for the colony that began 
its struggle in 1607 was because he himself had been 
subject to hard labor, even to slavery in the Far East; 
he understood what work could accomplish; and, if 
sloth intervened, he also knew what work under the 
yoke would do. Smith's experience before he came 
to Virginia was what saved the colonists at James- 
town. He was practical, and was proud of it. 
Herein, therefore, is the large value of his work as a 
writer; he himself claims as much. And because 
Smith, in all he narrates, has been "a reall Actor," 
such early historians as Strachey and Stith have relied 
chiefly upon him. 



20 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

As an author, Smith may be considered almost 
voluminous. In reality, there are but three pieces 
that need occupy us in our consideration; his writings 
dealing with observations in New England, Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, do not differ, except in detail, from 
his other accounts. What standard to apply to his 
authorship has been set by himself in his dedication 
to " The Generall Historic of Virginia, New England, 
and the Summer Isles," addressed to the Duchess of 
Richmond and Lenox : " This history , . . might 
and ought to haue beene clad in better robes then my 
rude military hand can cut out in Paper Ornaments. 
But because, of the most things therein, I am no Com- 
piler by hearsay, but haue beene a reall Actor ; I take 
my selfe to haue a propertie in them: and therefore 
haue beene bold to challenge them to come vnder 
the reach of my owne rough pen. ... I am so bold 
as to call so piercing, and so glorious an Eye, as your 
Grace, to view those poore ragged lines." 

Such a book written by Smith, after he had been 
removed from the scenes of his adventures, presents 
a picture in many aspects. Tl^ere is the author seek- 
ing patronage — the same patronage which Shakespeare 
himself felt he could not do without; there is the 
gallant knight beneath the hale exterior, praising the 
women who had come to . his aid at parlous times ; 
there is the experienced colonist, bold in his criticism 
of the " covetousnes, ielousies, and idlenes " in Vir- 
ginia, — direct in his statements as to where the oppor- 
tunities of James I. lay in this new realm of his, 
urgent in his plea to have the colony encouraged, 
and unconsciously earnest in the statements of how 
much he had accomplished in his efforts to preserve 
peace and justice. 

The first of Smith's books dealing with the South 
was : " A True Relation of Such occurrences and ac- 
cidents of noate as hath hapnd in Virginia Since the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 21 

first planting of that Collony, which is now resident 
in the South part thereof, till the last returne from 
thence. Written by Captaine Smith, Coronell of the 
said collony, to a worshipfull friend of his in Eng- 
land. London: Printed by lohn Tappe, and are to 
bee solde at the Grey-hound in Paules Church-yard, 
by W. W. 1608." 

" The bluff Captain just stabbed his paper with inken 
words," writes Professor Tyler; indeed it is very evi- 
dent that Smith did not intend his account to be pub- 
lished, but only to serve as a document of information 
for the heads of the adventurous companies. The 
manuscript was written before he was forced to return 
to England; it was carried, with the ink hardly dry, 
on the return trip of Captain Nelson. When it found 
its way into print, its authorship was attributed to 
"Thomas Watson, Gent, one of the said Collony," 
although Smith's name was later substituted, with 
apologies by an editor who probably mutilated many 
of Smith's personal comments. Signing himself 
I. H., this same editor refers to the author, ** whose 
paines in my iudgement deserueth commendations; 
somewhat more was by him written, which being as 
I thought (fit to be priuate) I would not aduenture 
to make it publicke." 

This long epistle, for Smith begins his narrative, 
" Kinde Sir," most likely awakened in him the pride 
of authorship. It is the one of his works least con- 
scious as a literary production, however much he 
might strive thereafter to give easy expression to his 
thought. 

He did not overestimate his own composition; he 
tried to be direct, yet he was continually framing ex- 
cuses for this excellent quality in all style. His letter 
addressed to Lord Bacon, and accompanying his 
manuscript book on New England Trials, expresses 
admiration for letters, an art which in some " fewe 



22 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

leaves " could compress his experience of nineteen 
years. 

Having thus seen that Smith, the author, was no less 
dear a title to him than Smith, the soldier, let us turn 
to the spirit of his work. It is of interest only to 
those for whom historic sources have a significance; 
quaint customs, minute details, are mingled with large 
wonder and picturesque statements. To us the In- 
dians may not now hold a unique position ; to the Lon- 
don reader of 1608, they did. 

But as a man of action, John Smith, even in his 
writing, soon showed the power of his word. He 
might describe Powhatan, he might tell how the In- 
dians were brought to Christianity; there was in him 
also the spirit of retort. As President of the Virginia 
colony, having won his place by right of excellence, 
and being surrounded by faction and jealousy, he 
never hesitated to let the Treasurer and Council of 
Virginia know wherein they themselves were deficient, 
and how their narrow and selfish policy was limiting 
the improvement of conditions. 

About the same time that this letter was penned 
(1612), Smith sent back "A Map of Virginia; with 
a Description of the Country, the Commodities, People, 
Government, and Religion." It must have been 
compiled from numerous notes. Smith's observation 
was alert and keen; his interest in man and woman, 
in details trivial and large, mark him as an analyst of 
energetic character ; he is quaint, he is humorous, oft- 
times tender; he possesses a discriminating eye, a 
poetic manner of expression that takes away from the 
dullness of trivial things. His estimate of the Indian's 
nature, his delineation of Powhatan are done with no 
lack of skill. 

A close study of Captain John Smith's writings is 
not necessary to grasp the essentials of his authorship. 
Should we read through Edward Amber's excellent 



COLONIAL PERIOD 23 

edition of his works, we could not do more than claim 
for him what we have already done. A Lincolnshire 
man, he reached this country when he was but twenty- 
four years of age; in that short time he had become 
an uncommon warrior by right of uncommon deed. 
By the time he returned in 1609 from Virginia, his 
executive ability had become so apparent as to gain 
for him more than the mere title of " planter," as he 
was listed on board ship. What befell him is fraught 
with romance ; his encounters, his escapes, his love for 
Pocahontas, so appealingly however unhistorically 
treated by John Esten Cooke and by himself when he 
described her as the Nonpareil of her father's country, 
have tended to create around him an atmosphere of 
fable and invention. If he colored his descriptions, 
he did so with untrammeled spirit We have claimed 
for Smith a direct, simple expression of unusual 
merit; at times his choice of words is surprisingly 
apt, indicating a genuine art. One poem, " The Sea 
Marke," has been credited to him. Altogether, he is 
no mean colonial author ; upon his own method others 
were to model theirs ; it was not a new form of litera- 
ture but the details he sought, we find others seeking; 
he pointed the way, others followed. Though he re- 
turned to America in 1614 and identified his name 
with the New England coast, it is with the South 
that he is wholly connected. 

Smith's immediate contemporaries were not slow to 
send forth their own impressions of their doings in the 
new world. Worthy of mention are George Percy's 
" Obseruations," Newport's (i565?-i6i7) "Discov- 
eries in America," and Edward Maria Wingfield's 
" A Discourse of Virginia." Even John Rolfe (1585- 
1622), who put an end to Smith's love affair by mar- 
rying Pocahontas, has left his letters and his scattered 
bits of a "Relation," while R. Rich's (fl. 1610) 
" Newes from Virginia " may be taken as the first 



24 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

poem to receive attention. The full title was " Nevves 
from Virginia. The lost Flocke-Triumphant. With 
the happy Arriual of that famous and Worthy Knight 
S^ Thomas Gates; and the well reputed and valiant 
captaine Mr. Christopher Newporte, and others, into 
England. With the manner of their distresse in the 
Hand of Deuils (otherwise called Bermoothawes), 
where they remained 42 weekes, and builded two 
Pynaces, in which they returned into Virginia, by R. 
Rich, Gent., one of the voyage. London. Printed 
by Edw. Allde, and are to be solde by John Wright, 
at Christ Church dore. 1610." Whether Rich or 
Strachey may lay claim to having supplied Shake- 
speare with data for " The Tempest," is of small con- 
sequence. The severe storm and its treatment by the 
several writers on board the Sea-Venture, indicate 
how strongly the natural surroundings, the apparent 
savage wildness of the scene affected these men. 

Rich was an illegitimate son of a nobleman, yet it 
is more likely he came to America for adventure than 
to escape the stigma of birth. Smith often com- 
plained of the overabundance of the young soldiers of 
fortune who largely composed the worthless part of 
the struggling colonies. But George Percy (1586- 
1632), a son of the Earl of Northumberland, was dif- 
ferent. He rapidly rose to favor in the new settle- 
ment, was perhaps arrogant in his position as enemy 
to Smith, and was made Deputy-Governor after Smith 
was deposed and until Gates arrived. He is the 
author of " A True Relation of the Proceedings and 
Occurrents of moment which have happened in Vir- 
ginia from the time Sir Thomas Gates was ship- 
wrecked upon the Bermudas, 1609, until my Depar- 
ture out of the country, 1612." Not only does he 
show a partisan spirit in his ill-treatment of Smith's 
character, but there is a disparity between facts show- 
ing him to be an unscrupulous enemy. He does not 



COLONIAL PERIOD 25 

mention Smith at all to blame him in his other manu- 
script, " Observations gathered out of a Discourse of 
the Plantation of the Southerne Colonic in Virginia, 
1606. Written by that Honorable Gentleman, Mas- 
ter George Percy/* He observes with the same fresh 
eye that we have noted in Smith, and often his aston- 
ishment tends to assume proportions that will overdo 
the event or occurrence. Things are " faire " to these 
adventurers or they are " terrible " ; there is no inter- 
mediate compromise. Their choice of words is defi- 
nite: "the Trees full of Sweet and good Smels." Percy 
was a depicter of nature; once landed in Virginia, he 
was quick to discover " faire meddowes and goodly 
tall trees, with such fresh waters running through the 
woods, as I was almost rauished at the first sight 
thereof." The savages interest him — their customs, 
manners, religions, how they make bread, in what 
manner the women plait their hair to distinguish 
the married from the unmarried. When he selects 
an event to describe at length, we feel he has selected 
the one most picturesque, and at the same time most 
typical. Curious and new as are all these things to 
him, Percy is alert for the variations from the usual 
type. He expresses surprise at finding a yellow- 
haired Virginian among the Indians; he possesses a 
simple faith easily satisfied with the setting up of 
crosses along the route, and when famine beset them, 
and the savages came to their aid, it was not the doing 
of Smith or Pocahontas, but the unseen guiding hand 
of God. Unembellished some may call these descrip- 
tions, a mere inventory of landscape, but Smith's in- 
terest, the interest of all colonial writers in the 
commonplace, is indicative of how ready they were 
to gather impressions, and how thoroughly they im- 
bibed, as travelers, the strangeness of their environ- 
ment. Many of these impressions are sketched in 
nervously, as an artist would map out a picture, yet 



26 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

each stroke is telling, even though it may not be 
finished. Percy paints one chieftain who came to 
meet them at the water-side, arriving " with all his 
traine, as goodly men as any I haue Scene of Sau- 
ages or Christians; the Werowance comming before 
them playing on a Fluie made of a Reed, with a Crown 
of Deares hair colloured red, in fashion of a Rose 
fastened about his knot of haire, and a great Plate 
of Copper on the other Side of his head, with two 
long Feathers in fashion of a paire of Homes placed 
in the midst of his Crowne. . . . He entertained 
vs in so modest a proud fashion, as though he had 
beene a Prince of ciuill gouernment. . . ." 

That Percy was indebted to Smith is evident from 
the fact that his book contains the Virginia map and 
other emendations. Purchas, in his wonderful source 
compilation, ends this account with an entry in Sep- 
tember, 1607; "the rest is omitted," he says, "being 
more fully set downe in Captain Smith's Relations." 

There is much that might be laid to the credit of 
William Strachey (fl. 1609-18) to stamp him as 
more than an ordinary chronicler of events. His 
account of the storm-tossed Sea-Venture, in the 
form of a letter, " A true Reportery of the wrack 
and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon 
and from the Islands of the Bermudas, his coming 
to Virginia, and the estate of that colony, then and 
after under the government of the Lord La Ware," 
has already been mentioned in connection with that 
of Rich ; it contains motion, increasing force, and a 
certain beauty of gloom that is rare in this early 
period. As an eye-witness, a participator, he was 
impelled to handle the event with a graphic and sym- 
pathetic surety. It may be, too, that he possessed 
a certain amount of culture that rose to the occasion 
of depicting a perilous moment with pathos and 
breathless suspense. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 27 

For " Four and twenty hours," runs the descrip- 
tion, "the storm, in a restless tumult, had blown so 
exceedingly, as we could not apprehend in our imag- 
inations any possibility of greater violence, yet did 
we find it, not only more terrible, but more constant, 
fury added to fury, and one storm urging a second, 
more outrageous than the former, whether it so 
wrought upon our fears, or indeed met with new 
forces. Sometimes strikes in our ship amongst women, 
and passengers not used to such hurly and discomforts, 
made us look one upon the other with troubled hearts, 
and panting bosoms, our clamors drowned in the 
winds, and the winds in thunder." 

Having arrived at Jamestown, Strachey, in his 
official capacity as first secretary of the colony, was 
active with his pen. Not only did he write several 
accounts of the adventures of De la Warre and Gates, 
which are thought to have served Sir Edwin Sandys 
for his own written view of a colony he never visited, 
but likewise there may be classed as a state document, 
" For the colony in Virginia Britannia, Lavves Diuine, 
Morall and Martiall," which Strachey dedicated to 
the Lords of the Councell of Virginia. His chief de- 
sire in this seems to have been to point a way for 
" such young souldiers in the Colony who are desirous 
to learne and performe their duties." He may have 
shown some of his cunning and wisdom in believing 
that probably his manuscript would be read by those 
in authority who should know the truth. The duties, 
civil, military, and religious, are enumerated; laws to 
be read by the captain before his men; prayers to be 
delivered to the guards of the watch ; the thirty-seven 
orders to be pondered over by the minister every Sab- 
bath, in default of which he will be deprived for seven 
days of his calling. Such writing, with its legal bear- 
ing, is of more interest to the historian than to the 
critic of letters. 



28 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Strachey was back in England by the time this com- 
pilation was published in 1612, and he appears to have 
been busy editing Smith's " Map of Virginia," as well 
as planning a book of his own. His interests were 
now largely centered in the colony, though he never 
returned. The entire scope of his thoroughly dig- 
nified treatise is : " The History of Travaile into Vir- 
ginia Britannia; expressing the Cosmographie and 
Comodities of the Country, togither with the man- 
ners and Customes of the People. Gathered and ob- 
served as well by those who went first thither as col- 
lected by William Strachey, Gent, the first Secretary 
of the Colony." The manuscript, as far as he pro- 
gressed with it, was not published until the Hakluyt 
Society issued it in 1849. 

Smith and Strachey were associated in the ex- 
pedition up the Chesapeake; hence many things in 
common came under their observation, and the fact 
that Strachey was a reader of Smith's writings is 
sufificient evidence that he used Smith as a chief 
source. 

The historical method employed by Strachey denotes 
forethought and some elementary research. His rea- 
soning arises from the popular misconceptions of the 
day, but it is not so wholly at variance with the scho- 
lasticism of the time as to challenge his explanation 
of the origin of Indians, springing from the family 
of Cham. If, on the one hand he is willing to accept 
that theory, on the other he is puzzled by a practical 
doubt as to how the vagabond race of Cham ever did 
land in the new world, without '' shipping, and means 
to tempt the sea." His measure of justice when de- 
scribing the savages is full to overflowing, for he 
recognizes the white man's indiscretions and follies, 
and, on his part, there is a willingness to emphasize 
the noble qualities of the red man. The analysis of 
Indian subtlety, the realism displayed in his descrip- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 29 

tions of Indian punishment, the discrimination be- 
tween what they foster as custom and what is in- 
grained as Indian nature, are couched in phrases of 
unusual clearness and distinction. Historians to-day, 
in search for graphic details of religious rites, tribal 
theories as to the " ymmortality of the sowle," as to 
dancing and singing, regard these documents in the 
light of stenographic reports from an eye-witness. 
Strachey is sesthetically inclined; besides being ana- 
lytic, he is speculative. He prefers men to natural 
scenery ; his impression of Powhatan, the " goodly old 
man, not yet shrincking, though well beaten with 
many cold and stormye winters," is strong in outline. 
He brings to his work a degree of musical apprecia- 
tion where he describes the savage singing: 

"They have base, tenor, counter tenor, mean and 
treble; these myngled with their voices, sometymes 
twenty or thirty togither, make such a terrible howl- 
ing as would rather affright then give pleasure to 
any man. They have likewise their errotica carmina^ 
or amorous dittyes." 

This passage is based on no mere literal record; 
it is fraught with a personal tinge of humor, observa- 
tion, and understanding. The author was a man of 
learning, who attempted to combine description with 
correlation, for though early forms of literajture 
abound in similes and metaphors, the contrast of 
theories does not indicate an elemental intellect. The 
one arises from a close contact with nature ; the other 
founds itself upon education. We are not surprised 
then to read into Strachey's history something of the 
author's culture. 

He writes that the Indians " suppose that the com- 
mon people shall not live after death ; but they thinck 
that their weroances and priests, indeed, whom they 
•esteem half quioughcosughes, when their bodyes are 
laied in the earth, that that which is within shall goe 



30 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

beyond the mountaynes, and travell as farr as where 
the sun setts into most pleasant fields, growndes, and 
pastures, where yt shall doe no labour . . . till 
that waxe old there, as the body did on earth, and 
then yt shall dissolve and die, and come into a 
woman's womb again, and so be a new borne unto 
the world; not unlike the heathen Pythagoras his 
opinyon, and fable of metempsychosis; nor is this 
opinion more ridiculous or savage then was the Epi- 
cures." 

Although he did not complete this work, Strachey 
undertook to write it in a truly creditable manner. He 
possessed much of the data necessary, to which he 
added his own personal investigation. He did not 
remain in the colony, but from a distance, perhaps, 
he was better able to balance his data and to see 
events in proper proportions; he regarded his duties 
seriously and his interest was something more than 
external. 

It is doubtful whether a chronicle of colonial names 
will do much more than convince one that there was 
not as significant a literature in the South as in 
New England, because of the very fact that there 
was no dominant meeting-house and because the 
population segregated rather than congregated. But 
the value of recollecting the name of the Rev. Alex- 
ander Whitaker (1585-1613) rests in the emphasis 
his endeavors place on the existence of a strong Puri- 
tan feeling in the South — not perhaps as ascetic as in 
the North, but equally as zealous. In him we con- 
template what Professor Tyler claimed to be "a man 
of apostolic sorrow," one who, in the fervor of his 
spiritual desire, left a comfortable living to do mis- 
sionary work in Virginia. He was the son of a 
famous father — William Whitaker, master of St. 
John's College, Oxford, and himself took a degree. 
It is claimed that Strachey's history turned his mind 



COLONIAL PERIOD 31 

toward the new land, but certain it is that his deter- 
mination was made up when, in 161 1, Sir Thomas 
Dale started for Virginia. The "Good News from 
Virginia," when it was pubHshed in 161 3, carried an 
" Epistle Dedicatory " by Whitaker's friend, ' Cra- 
shawe, who in a few words epitomized this " apostolic 
impulse" ; he " did voluntarily leave his warm nest," 
so runs the text, "and to the wonder of his kindred 
and amazement of them that knew him, undertook 
this . . . heroical resolution to go to Virginia, and 
help to bear the name of God unto the heathen." 

Settled in the " City of Henrico," Whitaker, during 
his sojourn of six years, among his many duties 
brought Pocahontas to salvation through conversion. 
What he wrote was not exactly literature; it was a 
cross between sermonic exhortation, " pithy and 
godly " claims Crashawe, and the usual descriptions 
without, as Tyler claims, " any shining superiorities in 
thought or style." 

Whatever writing Whitaker did was framed in 
the missionary tone; it stretched beyond the limits 
of text, although permeated with unswerving spiritual 
intention which was his by inheritance. Yet there was 
an added tone of national appeal to Englishman, 
couched in such words as " Let the miserable condition 
of these naked slaves of the devil move you to com- 
passion toward them." Whitaker's belief was strong; 
he was firm in his surety that in him was the perfect 
minister, by right of his knowledge of scriptural doc- 
trine. He was exacting toward his meager congrega- 
tion. " Every Sabbath day," he wrote to a friend, 
" we preach in the forenoon and catechize in the after- 
noon. Every Saturday, at night, I exercise in Sir 
Thomasr Dale's house." 

Whitaker was an unceasing worker, a fearless yet 
simple man. He was not so tied to custom as to 
adhere to the surplice in the colony; he was exacting 



Z2 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

in the spirit, and withal a loving, gentle friend. His 
letters breathe such a tone. 

Interest in John Pory (1570?- 163 5) centers 
chiefly in the epistolatory character of his writings. 
He was an adventurer seeking impressions, but his na- 
ture was not one long to be kept away from civiliza- 
tion; we find him often bemoaning the state of his 
loneliness, and yet he was by no means lethargic. 
With a B. A. and a M. A. degree from Cambridge and 
Oxford, he became a pupil of Hakluyt, and from him 
received encouragement to translate from the Arabic 
and Italian, a History of Africa, written by John Leo 
Moore. He was held in high esteem by Hakluyt, 
who referred to him as " my very honest, industrious 
and learned friend " ; he was acquainted with the poet 
Donne, and with Sir Robert Cotton. Unfortunately 
for his scholarship, he was possessed of a conviviality 
that well nigh proved his ruin. Soon after leaving 
Oxford, Pory, already talked of in many channels for 
his translated history, won a seat in Parliament, and 
gained the favor of the King, who used him in diplo- 
matic negotiations. He had seen something of the 
world, trying with much ingenuity to introduce a silk- 
loom stocking weave into England, an idea gained 
while traveling through France and the Low Coun- 
tries. He was a restive person, not content to remain 
in a place for any length of time, and Parliament soon 
gave him leave to travel for three years. It maybe 
was this fitful humor which lost him the secretary- 
ship to Virginia at the time the poet Donne tried for 
it and failed. Had the latter come over, historians in 
their zealousness might have regarded him as an 
American writer. Such an attitude is humorous, as 
much so, we shall see, as for us to claim Sandys 
and his poetical ventures. 

Pory hastened to Ireland, then turned to Paris ; by 
1 61 3 he was going from Turin to Venice, and then 



COLONIAL PERIOD 33 

received a halt at Constantinople, where he remained 
until 161 6. It would seem that the adventurer fell 
into financial straits, and was extricated therefrom by 
Sir Dudley Carleton; he traveled with the latter in 
Zealand, and though racked with the weakness of 
drink, he appears to have been endowed with the 
easy good-nature of a courtier. 

By the end of 161 8, Pory sailed to Virginia as sec- 
retary to Yeardley. The colony had been in peril 
through the evil doings of Argall. Naturally, with 
his parliamentary experience, Pory was soon required 
in the deliberations of the Council, and it was this 
same advantage which made him by 1621 Speaker 
of the General Assembly. When Yeardley was suc- 
ceeded by Wyatt, in 1621, the secretary lost his post 
and therefore returned to England. His life from 
this time became picturesque; he was soon on the 
road, and by the summer of 1622, with a Captain 
Jones, reputed to have once commanded the May- 
iiou^r, he sailed across seas to investigate all har- 
bors between Plymouth and Virginia. While in the 
former place, he became friendly with Bradford dur- 
ink the short time he remained North. No sooner 
upon the highway, than he fell into the hands of some 
Portuguese who would thereupon have hanged him 
for a Protestant knave if a royal marriage involving 
Spanish and English interests had not been at issue. 
In the end, Pory felt himself ill treated by the Lon- 
don company, and charges of various kinds were 
brought against him. By 1624, he had settled down 
in London. 

Many of Pory's letters are extant; they are col- 
ored largely by his temperament; no doubt, the one 
addressed to his friend, Sir Dudley Carleton, is as 
typical as any other. He has great faith in colonial 
possibilities ; in spite of the Spaniards and the Indians, 
he prophesies vast growth for the new estate. 



34 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Having come from the civilized world, to a coun- 
try uncouth, here was a colonist who found the tran- 
sition hardly bearable. Aloof from the general cur- 
rent of life, surrounded mostly by ignorance, for the 
vessels were laden with those who lacked common 
sense, he forced himself to become indifferent, and 
turned to his pen and a good book for consolation; 
thus he found himself his best company. Is it so 
strange that endearment should be the dominant note 
in this letter destined to one in the land of life? Is 
is not almost a cry in the wilderness that escapes from 
Pory when he ends by asking for pamphlets and with 
a desire to see his lordship soon again? 

The manner in which environment played upon the 
nature of the colonist, has not as yet affected the 
thought of the colonial writer any more than it would 
any stranger in a strange land. So that overcareful- 
ness in claiming colonial writing as native product 
is the wisest course. Yet we are prone to turn to 
George Sandys (1577- 1644) ^s our first professional 
literary man, who in the midst of primeval forests sat 
him down to cast into artistic mold, expression for 
the sake of its own beauty. Sandys had come from 
a line of literary people, all of them alike known for 
their studiousness and for their prominence in affairs. 
Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, was noted for 
his irritable disposition, his duplicity In the murder 
of Mary Queen of Scots, and his skill in the trans- 
lation of the Bishop's Bible; his second son, Edwin, 
was treasurer of Virginia, but never came to this 
country. Sufficient to note that after George left 
Oxford, the first we hear of him is on his travels 
East In 1610; through influence, he had gained him 
friends of enviable rank. 

Sandys was a man of scholarly attainments; he 
spoke man}^ languages, he had spiritual feeling and 
artistic grace; he loved adventure, and what he had 



COLONIAL PERIOD 35 

done and seen fired his fancy. When, in 1606, the 
Charter for the Colony in Virginia was obtained, the 
Sandys family turned their eyes westward. Sir Edwin 
became Treasurer of the Corporation. By 1621, when 
Wyatt was detailed as Governor, and sailed with his 
ofhcial household, his uncle George followed him as 
Treasurer. Little is said of the administration of his 
duties; everything is lost in the ideal picture of this 
courtier, this colonist, escaping from his labors to 
finish his translation of Ovid's " Metamorphoses." 
Stith, the later historian, marveled that such creation 
could be consummated in so wild a land. The poet 
himself, in his dedication to Charles, claims that his 
lines " sprung from the stock of the ancient Romans, 
but bred in the New- World, of the rudeness of which 
it cannot but participate." 

So popular did his version become that by 1690 
it had reached its eighth edition, and had won the 
praise of all his literary contemporaries. When 
Sandys returned to England in 162 ^ or 1626, honors 
were bestowed upon him and he was made a Gentle- 
man of his Majesty's Privy Chamber. He continued 
to dedicate his work to the King, and inheriting some 
of the inclination of his father, the Archbishop, he 
paraphrased the Psalms in 1636, published his five- 
act tragedy, " Christ's Passion," in 1640, and the 
"Song of Solomon" in 1641. Having now reached 
an age when retirement was most fitting, the poet 
went to dwell with his niece, Margaret, whose hus- 
band, Sir Francis Wyatt, was the grandson of Thomas 
Wyatt, of literary fame. There he abandoned him- 
self wholly to contemplation and poetry, and died on 
March 4, 1644. 

There is little that might be called original in the 
productions of George Sandys, although his trans- 
lations and paraphrases show a frank desire to depart 
from the usual paths of servility and literalness. Cer- 



36 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tainly they were admired by many generations, though 
not sufficiently to warrant the " Metamorphoses '' be- 
ing printed in America. That Sandys must have writ- 
ten independent of conventions is evident by the fact 
that he did not attempt to set his metres to the meas- 
ure of church music. A man of pious incHnation, he 
was loved and lauded in countless verse. Except for 
the rare example of a writer in the backwoods devot- 
ing himself to literature, Sandys may hardly be claimed 
as a Southerner. But he was so regarded by his asso- 
ciates. 

Among the adventurous writers who might be 
named along with Richard Rolfe, is Col. Henry Nor- 
wood, who, a veritable soldier of fortune, set sail 
for America on September 23, 1649, with the strong 
belief that it was somewhat incumbent upon him, 
inasmuch as he was " nearly related " to Sir Wil- 
liam Berkeley. His narration of " A Voyage to Vir- 
ginia " is crisp with color and adventure ; it is a chron- 
icle with strong fictional interest, being told with 
some spirit and with some eye for the melodramatic 
occurrences on the trip. Indeed, the narrative would 
please many a boy of to-day ; there is a story of heroic 
proportions, demanding endurance, bravery, and sacri- 
fices as strong as one finds in the usual books of ad- 
venture. 

Norwood was a hearty sailor, one to stare death in 
the face, to cope with starvation, to feel the pictur- 
esqueness of storm and moonlight. His descriptions 
are vivid, and the day and night aboard his vessel 
gave him a stock of dangers upon which he was not 
loath to discant. He approached hardship with a 
fund of natural humor that is fair indication of his 
true sportsman's spirit. If he thirsted, his " dreams 
were all of cellars, and taps running down my throat, 
which made my waking much the worse by that tan- 
talizing fancy." 



COLONIAL PERIOD 37 

Most of these adventurous experiences were set 
down from memory; therefore, it is necessary to dis* 
count some of the enthusiasm, one might almost claim 
zest, with which the romantic and gruesome details 
were described. To shoot fowl by moonlight is a 
pretty idea, but to feed on dead companions through 
the dire straits into which they fell is another thing. 
Norwood is a glib narrator. He depicts the Indians 
with a touch lighter than that of the purposeful chron- 
icler; therefore, wherever he sketches the person of 
an Indian king, queen or princess, his pencil is deft 
in the depiction, based on more than mere observa- 
tion and evidence of a warm appreciation of the child- 
ish humor to be found in the Indian character. Nor- 
wood is fresh and that is a characteristic not easily 
to be discounted. 

For the first time, we now come to a change in 
locality, and an alteration in the outlook of the 
writer. As a Marylander, and as a Catholic priest, 
the view-point shifts in the case of Father Andrew 
White (1579- 1656), who was sent to the New World 
in 1633. As a missionary, he received banish- 
ment from England in 1606, having suffered im- 
prisonment and insult. He was a man of deep learn- 
ing, having been professor of Scriptures, dogmatic 
theology, Hebrew, and Greek at various places from 
Valladolid and Seville to Liege. Once arrived in the 
Maryland colony, his mission was soon begun, and 
he remained eleven years, when once more he was 
subjected to indignity, and forced back to England, 
where he was just saved from death, but was sen- 
tenced to banishment for life. The remainder of his 
days was spent in diverse wanderings, and minor 
duties, such as chaplain to a family of some wealth. 
His work among the Indians in America was earnest 
and persistent ; alive to the difficult problem of appeal- 
ing to them, of continuing in direct intercourse with 



38 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

them, he set to work mastering their language. There 
is a picture in Shea's " History of the CathoHc Church 
in the United States," which portrays White in the act 
of baptizing the natives. 

White's book is written in the spirit of a report; 
it bears the title, "A Relation of the Colony of the 
Lord Baron of Baltimore, in Maryland, near Virginia ; 
a Narrative of the Voyage to Maryland, by Father 
Andrew White. And Sundry reports, from Fathers 
Andrew White, John Altham, John Brock, and other 
Jesuit Fathers of the Colony, to the Superior General 
at Rome." 

Knowing upon what basis the colony was founded, 
and understanding the full significance of the priest's 
calling, it is readily determined how far White would 
look in his investigations ; his is not a secular view of 
colony planting: the grain and the fruit trees are to 
spring from the seeds of the Gospel. Nature may be 
extravagant in her massiveness and density, yet the 
light of God must penetrate the darkness. On the voy- 
age over, prayers assuage the waves ; the deck becomes 
the beginning of a Catholic stronghold which was to 
bring salvation to a savage land. Protestant Vir- 
ginia might look askance and unfavorably at the new 
colony, it mattered not, for faith was the mastering 
passion. In 1634, places in the newly assigned terri- 
tory were receiving the sanctified names of St. Gregory 
and St. Michael. As to the rivers, the Thames seemed 
a mere rivulet. Father White, with face to the shore, 
had wafted to him the freshness of the forest. " It is 
not rendered impure by marshes," he writes, "but on 
each bank of solid earth rise beautiful groves of trees, 
not choked up with an undergrowth of brambles and 
bushes, but as if laid out by the hand, in a manner so 
open, that you might freely drive a four-horse chariot 
in the midst of the trees." 

The picturesque writer is primarily a dogmatic ob- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 39 

server; faith was so far uppermost in mind, that 
nought could withstay its influence, its irresistible 
power. A snake bite was cured by divine grace; 
dreams came to his aid in converting to Catholicism. 
These colonists mistrusted Protestant interpreters who 
were detailed to find out the religious views of the 
Indians. Yet despite this certain narrowness, White's 
narrative is manly and sincere in its object. He was 
not an Englishman so much as a Catholic; he would 
better conditions in America, not for the sake of per- 
sonal pride, but for the glory of Rome and the Pope. 

The next figure in our literary survey possesses 
something of a cosmopolitan character. John Ham- 
mond arrived in Virginia in 1635, ^^^ after a resi- 
dence of nineteen years, crossed over to Mar3dand 
where he remained for two years, deep in his investi- 
gations of conditions. When, in 1656, he found him- 
self once again in England, and realized in what a 
quandary people were who, about to sail for America, 
were torn between doubt and hope by conflicting re- 
ports, he set himself the task of stating the true condi- 
tions. The necessity of the work and the recent- 
ness of his experience account for the rapidity with 
which the book was completed. The same year of his 
return, there was published ^' Leah and Rachel ; or,. 
The Two Fruitfull Sisters Virginia and Mary-Land : 
Their Present Condition, Impartially stated and re- 
lated With A Removall of such Imputations as are 
scandalously cast on those Countries, whereby many 
deceived Souls, chose rather to Beg, Steal, rot in 
Prison, and come to Shamefull deaths, then to better 
their being by going thither, wherein is plenty of all 
things necessary for Humane subsistance. By John 
Hammond. . . . London. Printed by T. Mabb, and 
are to be sold by Nich. Bourn, neer the Royall Ex- 
change." 

Its very scope suggests something unusual in the 



40 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

nature of its purpose. The tone is native, based on 
satisfaction and a love of the new home. It is colonial 
and its significance lies in the youthful challenge which 
might be classed as American. Upon reading a few 
pages, Hammond will be recognized as a writer on the 
aggressive as well as on the defensive ; his main object 
is to infuse enthusiasm without concealing facts. 

Hammond's intention was to be practical, not 
theoretical. He has watched for himself, and he is 
safe to follow in his advice. He has seen indentured 
servants sign themselves thoughtlessly into the hands 
of Merchant and Mariner, and thus shackled, cross 
the seas to an unknown Master. His voice is strong 
for their sakes in his warning them to know somewhat 
of their destination, to attend carefully to their con- 
tracts, and once settled in these points, to remain un- 
daunted, even though at first all high hopes are dashed 
to pieces. America has found a champion in Ham- 
mond ; he is much less an Englishman, and much more 
a native. He is certain in his mind that he prefers 
Virginia to London. How could any one ever desire 
to live in England, he suggests, even though he own 
landed estates? For the husbandmen or the hands- 
craftmen there are worse off than the commonest 
laborer in the colony. Hammond would have all re- 
ports disbelieved that picture the workman without 
recreation, with no bed but a couple of bare boards. 
There is plenty for the industrious; and the stranger 
soon finds friends where hospitality is the rule rather 
than the exception. 

And so, he passes to a new land which is unknown 
simply because overclouded by the greatness of Vir- 
ginia. " I casting my eye on Mary-land the younger, 
grew inamoured on her beauty, resolving like Jacob 
when he had first served for Leah, to begin a fresh 
service for Rachel." 

Hammond's tone is serious throughout; he is plain 



COLONIAL PERIOD 41 

and vigorous, enthusiastic but not given to false flat- 
tery; nor has he much confidence in himself as a 
writer. His name is affixed because he wishes his 
criticisms to have a sponsor, in case they be considered 
libels. He knows he has enemies in England, and 
since the Claiborne affair, that " pestilent enemie," he 
can expect nought from Virginia. He had to flee 
for his life, condemned to die " by the rebells of the 
Bay." This production must not be taken as a piece 
of literature; but it is removed from that class of 
writing termed report, by the impulse which prompted 
Hammond to produce it. The motive shows an ad- 
vance over all others so far mentioned as being classed 
among colonial writers. It can but be regarded as an 
expression which shifts its ground from a simple rec- 
ord to a personal opinion. 

The serving people thus described and championed 
by Hammond, had another supporter in one who be- 
longed to their class, and who follows and corrob- 
orates much outlined in ** Leah and Rachel." 
George Alsop (fl. 1638) has been called a roisterer of 
the Restoration period ; he was a staunch opponent to 
Cromwell; he was also one to sing in verse of the 
Stuarts' return to the throne. But his royalist habits 
no doubt drove him from England when the Round- 
heads gained the ascendency. Perhaps it was then 
that his servitude began when, about 1658, he set sail 
for America and most likely attached himself on board 
ship to his future master, bound for Maryland. Since 
he appears to have been fortunate in his attachment, 
we have some cause to discount part of his optimism 
regarding apprenticeship. We may rely on his de- 
scription of the redemption system, however, which 
enters fully into the terms and gives the exact form 
of procedure commonly followed. Like Hammond's 
book, this new one was framed to encourage emigra- 
tion, to dispel the evil reports about untrue conditions. 



42 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

It is a propagandist pamphlet, couched in broad, plain, 
coarse English, yet given at times to fall into height- 
ened language far and away above the heads of those 
to whom his words were addressed. It is an admix- 
ture of prose and verse which, when it appeared in 
1665 (?), was awarded praise from all who pro- 
claimed the author no mean manipulator of " plain, 
yet pithy and concise description." 

The pages were addressed to Lord Baltimore: they 
were further introduced by forewords to all merchant 
adventurers, with a preface to the Reader, and one to 
the book attached. All this preamble is served up in 
a jocular vein, well nigh witty in its familiarity. 
" This dish of Discourse was intended for you at 
first," he proclaims to the aforementioned adventurers, 
" but it was manners to let my Lord have the first 
cut, the Pye being his own." The intention, the ob- 
ject was clearly outlined in the mind of Alsop ; this is 
very evident from the analytic form of the title page : 
" A Character of the Province of Mary-land, wherein 
is Described in four distinct Parts, (Viz.) I. The 
Scituation, and plenty of the Province. II. The 
Laws, Customs, and Natural Demeanor of the In- 
habitants. III. The worst and best Vsage of a Mary- 
land Servant, opened in view. IV. The Traf^ique, 
and Vendable Commodities of the Countrey. Also A 
small Treatise on the Wilde and Naked Indians (or 
Susquehanokes) of Mary-land, their Customs, Man- 
ners, Absurdities, and Religion. Together with a 
Collection of Historical Letters. By George Alsop. 
London. Printed by T. J. for Peter Dring, at the 
Sign of the Sun in the Poultrey; 1666." 

How far this treatise can claim originality over 
whatever had already been written is not so very evi- 
dent; it takes note of all the essential points that any 
traveler would be impressed with — the navigable 
rivers, the pleasant prospect of swells of rich land. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 43 

There is an inclination to stretch the truth, but it throws 
light on conditions in Maryland that escaped Ham- 
mond, who thereby proclaimed himself more a Virgin- 
ian. License of expression, unrefined innuendoes are 
ever before the eyes of this Stuart cavalier. In this re- 
spect, in his flashes of wit, he is different from our 
first view of the colonial writer. Some have claimed 
for him a simple mode of expression, but in this very 
matter of style, Alsop differs materially from his 
predecessors; he is no longer direct, but his prose is 
heightened by long-sounding terms. The polish of 
imitation which deprived the Restoration writer of 
freshness and made him bold, quickly laid hold on 
Alsop. He speaks of trees, plants, fruits and flowers 
as " the only Emblems or Hieroglyphicks of an Adam- 
itical or Primitive situation " ; on nearly every page 
we are confronted by such euphemistic phrases as 
" odoriferous smells," ** effigies of Innocency," " vege- 
table oratory," and the wind that whispers " softly in 
the auditual." 

For the sake of picturesqueness, Alsop is willing 
to stretch the truth; there was not the religious har- 
mony existent between Catholic and Protestant which 
he so persistently emphasizes ; there was not the quiet 
existence all the time that he suggests, neither the re- 
serve nor morality. He leaves much for us to picture 
of himself when he shows how futile the cause of a 
man who attempts to win a damsel by complimental 
and critical rarities. Who could resist the fair picture 
Alsop paints of indenture and the four or five years' 
servitude? And after it was done, he found himself 
richer, not only because of the training he had re- 
ceived, but because of the law which allotted him fifty 
acres of land, a year's supply of corn, wearing apparel 
and tools. 

Alsop left the colony in 1662, returning to London, 
but though he spent much time in writing loyal verse. 



44 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

rough hewn and faulty, the adventurous spirit would 
not be stilled, and so he next sailed for Maryland, 
despondent over the welfare of England, though re- 
joicing in the death of Cromwell. He was unremit- 
ting in his correspondence, and continued on the new 
soil to be a devoted follower of the Stuarts. Mean- 
while, Alsop failed in strength and was sent by his 
cousin Ellinor Evins some herbs which made him 
whole again ; so he dispatched to her a set of furs, and 
penned an acrostic declaiming his unending love and 
gratitude. When the bands of servitude were lifted, 
Alsop deplored the loss; used to routine and com- 
mand, he was loath to call himself free, for "Lib- 
erty without money," he declares, "is like a man 
opprest with the gout." In this strain, he writes to 
his brother P. A. who, about the same time, had ended 
his period of apprenticeship. George, always free 
and easy, always willing to obey the dictates of his 
heart, likewise possessed an open generosity ; his verses 
he sent away by every ship, but hardly ever without 
some token of another kind. To his brother, with 
this letter, he forwarded a supply of tobacco and some 
ornate verses " On a Purple Cap." 

But soon, the old illness crept upon him again and 
then his thoughts were turned upon spiritual matters ; 
he is fain to have his reckoning of good account. The 
disease left him shaken to the core; the shadow of 
death had well-nigh touched him, and with returning 
strength, we do not find entirely the rollicking royal- 
ist. The flesh has been chastened by the spirit. 

It was now very evident that some public temper had 
arisen among the colonists; they showed themselves 
capable of holding opinions as to the full significance 
of public affairs. The records contain mention of all 
local events bearing upon the general welfare, and 
apart from the documents best described as of a polit- 
ical nature, there are a few instances where a popular 



COLONIAL PERIOD 45 

action resulted in some definite literary production. 
Such distinction may be claimed for Bacon's Rebel- 
lion, a popular manifestation encouraged by a general 
love for liberty. The historical incident is dramatic 
in its situation where such a personality as Bacon is 
pitted against that of Governor William Berkeley, 
whose irascibility of temper, and whose prayer of 
thanks that there were no schools or presses in 
Virginia, have helped accentuate him as a typical 
colonial governor. The manuscripts known as the 
Burwell Papers were not discovered until some years 
after the Revolution; then chance brought them to 
light in the house of a Virginia family of Burwells, 
living on Northern Neck. There are many pamphlets 
extant, records of the Ingram proceedings, the Bacon 
campaign, a list of executions compiled by Berkeley 
himself, and finally two productions which have 
special value of their own. One is in the form of 
" An Account of Our Late Troubles in Virginia, writ- 
ten in 1676 by Mrs. An. Cotton of Q. Creeke, pub- 
lished from the original MS. in the Richmond (Va.) 
Enquirer, of 12 Sept. 1804." The lady traces acutely 
the Indian difficulties and Berkeley's high-handed re- 
fusal to protect the country, which led *' the Gent :man 
(without any scruple) [to] accept [s] of a commission 
from the people's affections." She addresses herself 
to a man abroad and displays a sympathy that rises to 
allegorical heights. For Bacon pursues the wolves 
who are descending upon innocent lambs, and in re- 
turn, he and his men are being undeservedly attacked 
in the rear. Thus does she outline " wordishly " the 
unsettled matters in the colony. 

A companion epistle to " A. C. my Wife " indicates 
how warmly engaged the husband's interest was. He 
would lead you to understand the martyrdom of 
Bacon; his attitude is as strong as that of Berkeley 
who would hang all of Bacon's " parasytes." 



46 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Tyler would have it believed that this same hus- 
band who wrote from Jamestown to An. Cotton 
on June 9, 1676, was also the one to pen the 
excellent epitaph which was made by Bacon's man. 
There is some small evidence to strengthen this claim 
— a similar classicism, and an equal amount of feeling". 
The verses are undoubtedly excellent in construction 
and dramatic in appeal. There is an active force at 
work in them, a mold of expression that has an art 
effect. It indicates passion ; it breathes forth subtlety 
of moral meaning. There is more finish in its manner 
of expression. The epitaph is one of the rare results 
of an art based upon individual emotion rather than 
upon visual reproduction. In technique it is one of 
the high literary points in colonial writing. 

The mystery which stamps this man with poetic 
ability, likewise spreads and becomes much more 
baffling in the case of Ebenezer Cook, Gentleman, a 
being of jocular breadth, who after leaving his manu- 
script, " The Sot-weed Factor,'' for the world to enjoy, 
disappeared as completely from Maryland as Diedrich 
Knickerbocker is supposed to have done from New 
York. He had the forethought, and the critical in- 
sight to term his lines, burlesque verse. But despite 
the humorous character of the jingles, there is a sub- 
stratum of seriousness that shows Ebenezer Cook, 
Gentleman, to have been a keen observer beneath the 
outward masquerading of his nom de plume. 

Yet he has not quite succeeded in hiding himself 
entirely. There cannot be ignored the fact that by his 
very coarseness, his allusions, and ribald tavern man- 
ners, this Gentleman had descended in the social scale 
by his fast living; had, as one of his editors remarks, 
" very soon discovered that Lord Baltimore's Colony 
was not the court of her Majesty Queen Anne, or its 
taverns frequented by Addison and the wits." 

And it seems that this versifier was intent on add- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 47 

ing mystery unto mystery, for Ebenezer Cook, Gen- 
tleman, becomes simply E. C. Gent, in the " Sot-weed 
Redivivus," which followed the former book. There 
is small direct evidence that this E. C. is the same 
man, save that which connects the titles, and associates 
the forms of verse. And yet it is very evident, on 
first reading, that Professor Tyler's discrimination is 
fine and just, when he claims that they resemble 
each other in coarseness, though the latter is wholly 
devoid of the former's saving wit. 

The first book is resplendent with a descriptive title 
page — "The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to 
Maryland. A Satyr. In which is describ'd The 
Laws, Government, Courts, and Constitutions of the 
Country, and also the Buildings, Feasts, Frolicks, En- 
tertainments and Drunken Humours of the Inhabitants 
of that Part of America. In Burlesque Verse. By 
Eben. Cook, Gent. London : Printed and Sold by D. 
Bragg, at the Raven in Pater-Noster-Row. 1708 
(Price 6d.)." 

In a " wavering boat," he braved the " Surley 
Ocean," to the shores of Maryland: 

Intending there to open Store, 

I put myself and Goods a-Shoar: 

Where Soon repair'd a numerous Crew . . . 

With neither Stockings, Hat, nor Shooe. 

In this metre, akin in its monotonous regularity to 
the nursery books, he tells how, as a strange conceit, 
he imagined this the land of Nod, how he crossed in 
a canoe, which statement is told in a skillful rhyme 
hinting at Browningesque dexterity in rhyme endings : 

The Indians call this wattery Waggon 
Canoo, a Vessel none can brag on. 

And so he lands, and finds himself regarded as a 
runaway; with his sword lifted in air he brings many 
to his way of believing, and he is greeted by a planter's 



48 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

household, where entertainment is for the asking with- 
out payment, '* syder," "pon," "milk," "mush," 
" homine," and " mollossus." Mine host is cordial, 
warns him to train his taste to crudeness, but for to- 
night, they will drink good rum. Here is the picture : 
the old planter smoking the " weed " out of his In- 
dian gun, and Cook, guzzling and wild. The in- 
decency of the scenes which follow would be disgust- 
ing did they not throw a spark of character light on 
one who passed as chambermaid, and who was forced 
to see him to his room; she was representative of a 
type — women who sold themselves in Maryland, and 
excused the act by claiming that bondage in this way 
saved them from a hated nuptial at home. 

In Annapolis his description, which Green, the 
printer, challenged, is fully tinged by unfortunate 
events which befell him ; in such a place, where there 
is scarcely a roof whole enough to keep out the rain, 
where the judge is called from his glass and bottle 
by the beat of drum, prejudice never grants a favor- 
able verdict to a stranger. So he hastily leaves, curs- 
ing everyone save English gentlemen like himself: 

May wrath Divine then lay those Region's wast 
Where no Man's Faithful, nor a Woman Chast. 

This closes the piece and it is safe to call the author 
an exaggerator, whose wit reflects much more of him- 
self than of his environment. He was manifestly an 
adventurer seeking wealth through barter; he evi- 
dently knew how to haggle, but in his desire to get 
the advantage, was himself overtaken by the same 
tricks. He was not attune to America, nor did he 
come over for any other reason than to trade. His 
sense of the incongruous, his peculiarly free manner, 
together with his aptness in verse-makiilg, emphasize 
him as a critic who obtains effect through cartoon 
exaggerations. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 49 

His second piece is more in the nature of a treatise : 
" Sot-weed Redivivus ; or, The Planters Looking- 
Glass. In Burlesque Verse. Calculated for the 
Meridian of Maryland, by E. C. Gent: Annapolis; 
William Parks, for the Author. 1730." Tyler might 
have fortified his doubt that E. C. and Ebenezer Cook, 
who dwelt in St. Mary's City in 1693, were one and 
the same person, by one more striking evidence. There 
are certain lines in the one^ similar in sense and word- 
ing to lines in the other. History always emphasizes 
the royal character of the proprietary form of colonial 
Maryland. The " Redivivus " has an Elegy on the Hon- 
orable Nicholas Lowe, one of the 5th Lord Balti- 
more's Council. The fact that this same Elegy is 
signed by the initials E. C. with the addition of 
" Laureat " suggests a curious possibility that the 
Lord Proprietor, living almost in independent royalty, 
employed an official Poet-Laureate of Maryland to 
sing his praises. The Elegy shows no mean ability on 
E. C.'s part to sing the praises lustily. 

The great doubt, however, as to the authenticity of 
Cook's right to the " Redivivus," lies in the complete- 
ness with which he ignored or distorted conditions in 
the first, and the clearness with which he realized the 
actual need of the colony in the last piece. In this, 
he notes the desire for a money standard, he discusses 
Parliamentary acts to limit the growth of tobacco, he 
is eager over the knowledge that a press has been 
established, he advises the proper care of drains in 
marshes and swamps, he pleads for the shipping in- 
terests. In other words, the second author, E. C. as 
opposed to Ebenezer Cook, Gent, is more a colonist 
than an adventurer, and he does not fail, in his dis- 
cussions, to speak of Maryland as "my country.'' 
This much we can believe and assert: if he were not 
the author of both burlesques, the laureate was a very 
close student of his model. 



CHAPTER III 

LATER COLONIAL AUTHORS 

From James Blair to Patrick Tailfer 

It is always a rare satisfaction to pass from shad- 
owy conjectures to substantial and healthy actualities, 
and in the case of Commissary James Blair (1656- 
1743), we find one of the few distinct and prepossess- 
ing personalities in our colonial literary history. For 
with his exceptional strength of bearing and earnest- 
ness of purpose, he may be placed perhaps in as prom- 
inent a light as Jefferson, for being the first to further 
^ the cultural element in Southern life. 

The many-sidedness of character marks him at once 
as a man of large view-point; his Scotch blood helps 
us to understand his stanch practical efforts, and his 
spiritual seriousness impresses us with his dauntless 
courage and unerring effort for the good of the Vir- 
ginia Colony. In 1673, he obtained his Master's de- 
gree from Cambridge; by the time he was sent to 
America, he had served in an Edinburgh parish, and 
had won favor because of his unswerving faithfulness. 
Then he had been forced, in 1679, to hasten to Eng- 
land because of the Scotch feeling toward the Episco- 
pal Church. And he turned to the new field with 
great hope, despite the fact that clergymen were not 
then in high repute, and the living was by no means 
assured. 

However, in 1685, ^^ cheerfully submitted to the 
duty imposed upon him, and his destination wa^ 
Henrico City, which afterwards became Richmond. 
He put to his work the energy of determination, en- 
couraged partly by the good-will of the Bishop of 

50 



COLONIAL PERIOD 51 

London who had urged his mission. Therefore, until 
1694, Blair preached, winning the respect of the colo- 
nists to such a degree that there was some demur 
when, during that year, he was called to Jamestown, 
a little nearer to what was known as the Middle Plan- 
tation, where the College was eventually to be estab- 
lished. By 1 710, the demand forced him to Williams- 
burg itself, where he was somewhat loath to go, at 
the same time realizing the convenience attendant 
upon the move. For, on December 4, 1710, he wrote: 
" It is true, I have so many obligations to ye Parish 
of James City, that nothing but the urgent necessity 
of health, often impaired by such long winter jour- 
neys, and a fear that as age and infirmaties increase, I 
shall not be able to attend that service (being at such 
a distance) so punctually as I have hitherto done, 
could have induced me to entertain anything as of 
leaving them." 

By the time he moved there, he was wed to the 
daughter of Benjamin Harrison of " Wakefield," 
Surry County, and what with his own reputation as a 
preacher, and his popularity as a man, it is easy to 
imagine that his church became the center for all the 
well-to-do folks dwelHng between the James and the 
York rivers. John Esten Cooke has given us a fair 
glimpse of the life of the then capital of Virginia, 
where the governor dwelt, where the Burgesses met, 
where soon, the college commencements became a 
feature of the social season. All classes were as- 
sembled there — the refined, the unrefined; the aristo- 
crat, the servant, and the slave. But also, there was 
destined to arise a middle class which was to be the 
back-bone, the stamina, of Revolutionary action. 

Blair's parish was Bruton, an aggregate of smaller 
groups, held firmly together by a new church which 
was soon begun. In this building crowded the elite 
to hear the unfailing eloquence and earnestness of 



52 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the preacher. Whatever his duties might be, whether 
poHtical or otherwise, James Blair was first, last 
and always the minister of the Gospel. It was- 
his primary duty to attend to the needs of his flock, 
and to his assistance he brought the Reverend 
Hugh Jones, w^ho for an entire year gave Sunday 
evening sermons. Were Blair to be called away, he 
was always sure to appoint someone in his stead, and 
so scrupulous was he, that he always refused the sal- 
ary due him in spite of his absence. 

He was popular, because it appears that he 
preached a practical Christianity; his texts were 
usually brought to bear upon immediate problems. 
He was a type of man who held power because he 
sought it by just and simple means. He had in him 
indomitable will to do, and dignity to suffer. He 
worked sedulously to revive the true spirit of Chris- 
tianity. His was not to consider morals in theory, 
but to arouse in others a determination to put into 
practice what he preached. His sermons, printed 
in 1722, and brought out in another edition during 
1740, number one hundred and seventeen, and are 
bound together by a unity of interpretation clearly de- 
fined in the title : " Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on 
the Mount contain'd in the Vth, Vlth, and Vllth 
Chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel, explained : And 
the Practice of it Recommended in divers Sermons 
and Discourses. In four volumes. To which is pre- 
fix'd A Paraphrase on the whole Sermon on the 
Mount: And Two Copious Indexes annex'd; one of 
the Scriptures explain'd, the other of the particular 
Heads treated of in the work. By James Blair, M. A. 
Commissary of Virginia, President of William and 
Mary College, and Rector of WiUiamsburgh in that 
Colony." 

The general tone of such an ambitious survey as 
this might have been purely doctrinal ; the pulpit gen- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 53 

erally, then as now, could not be tempted to go far 
beyond the letter. Blair's idea was to interpret the 
spirit, to apply as he went along, to form a running 
commentary of useful worth as well as of scholarly 
value. His interpretation has been widely regarded 
as a faithful guide to the New Testament. In his 
prefatory word, Blair reveals his open mind, his bal- 
ance of the theologian with the man. He expresses 
his desire, in his sermons, " to adapt them properly to 
Times, Persons, and Circumstances; to guard them 
against latent Prejudices, and Secret Subterfuges; 
and lastly, to enforce them with a becoming Earnest- 
ness, and with all the prudent Ways of Insinuation 
and Addrese." Blair knew that knowledge of the 
world . . . must be possessed by a minister. 

He strove unabatingly to fill the vacancies every- 
where found in Virginia ; such an out-of-the-way place 
as this colony was no incentive to London divines, 
and, wrongly, no efforts were exerted to send over 
men other than of ordinary ability. Blair rectified 
all this, and out of his effort to improve conditions, 
and out of the immediate necessity to supply this want, 
grew one of the strong incentives for the establish- 
ment of William and Mary College. 

High authority has ever been the source of exten- 
sive jealousy, and Blair soon found himself occupying 
a position where he was open to unjust censure. He 
had ever been looked on askance, since he was a 
Scotchman, but now, in those very conventions which 
he called together, he found it necessary to offer a 
stern front to an opposition of large proportions. 
The scene presented in church meeting must have 
been striking, and the satire and intellectual contests 
revealed considerable ability of a brilliant character. 
Throughout, Blair retained a dignified position, 
marked by a thorough self-control. Sometimes these 
assemblies lasted two days. 



^^ 



54 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

As the head of such a gathering-, no one but a diplo- 
mat could have averted open rupture, and all the while 
clerical conditions were actually improving. By 1733, 
there were only two vacancies which needed imme^ 
diate attention. 

How far the establishment of William and Mary 
College remedied these conditions need not occupy 
our present attention. Blair had begun his efforts as 
early as 1690. Before then George Sandys, with 
others, had obtained from his brother a special grant 
of 10,000 acres for a university at Henrico, and money 
was contributed as well as public interest secured. 
But an Indian massacre destroyed the impetus thus 
started, and it was not until 1660 that the colonial 
Assembly thought of the means for founding a col- 
lege and free schools. If the colonists were not of 
the same mind as Governor Berkeley, they at least 
^were hardly over-enthusiastic in their desire for educa- 
tion on a large scale, any more than they were anxious 
to settle in cities. The common education was slow 
to begin; the individual needs were satisfied by tutors 
sent from abroad. Blair realized this lethargic indif- 
ference, and his energy was of the exact kind to cope 
with the situation. It mattered little if there were a 
privately endowed school, and a few scattered log 
cabins devoted to teaching the elements of learning, 
he determined to develop a realization of the need for 
something higher. 

So he took the campaign right into the House of 
Burgesses, and in earnest phrases urged the petitions, 
{/ until he saw general approval gaining ground. What 
was most desired were charter, land-grants, and part 
of the quit-rents to begin with. Was this much to 
ask when the heathens would be more quickly Chris- 
tianized, and ministers more quickly secured? 

In the end, the Assembly of i6gi voted to send 
Blair to England in the interests of his scheme. He 



COLONIAL PERIOD 55 

went over In June, but arrived at an inopportune time, 
since the King was off to the wars, the Bishop of Lon- 
don ill, and the Archbishop of Canterbury away. 
With war in Flanders, Parliament had other things 
than colonial education to bear in mind. Blair ex- 
hibited his usual undaunted hopefulness. He was 
successful in obtaining private funds, and by the wis- 
dom of his talk and the clearness of his views, he won 
over in the Fall the support of the Bishop and of the 
Queen ; the King and Archbishop followed suit. The 
charter was granted on February 19, 1693, and with 
it land and revenue, part of which was collected on 
export tobacco from Maryland and Virginia. The 
only opposition he had met with was from the Attor- 
ney-General, who, of practical bent, laughed boldly at 
Blair's statement that the colonists " had souls to be 
saved as well as their English countrymen." " Souls, 
damn your souls ! Make tobacco ! " came the startling 
reply. The colonists were now beginning to realize 
that England looked to her possessions for nothing 
more than material returns. 

The history of the college now passes into the ac- 
tive intellectual forces of Virginia life, until it was met 
by a much larger force in the University of Virginia, 
when it began to decrease in influence. Its faculty 
was largely drawn from Edinburgh, Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, and its scholarship produced men of such 
stamp as Jefferson, Monroe, Marshall and Tyler. It ^^' 
has a right to be regarded as the pioneer force in 
Southern culture. 

Its early life is thus seen to have been protected and 
encouraged by the careful maneuvers of Blair; both 
here and abroad he wielded his executive ability 
wisely, all the more remarkable since he was in con- 
stant friction with the executive. We may construct 
an excellent portrait of the man as a diplomat, whether 
as one of the Council or as judge of the highest court 



A 



56 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

in the colony. In these positions, he was brought into 
relations with Andros, Nicholson, and Spotswood. 

Domineering- in character, Andros watched zeal- 
ously every move that such a prominent man as Blair 
would make. When he struck at the Commissary, he 
did so by aiming a blow at his efforts to establish the 
college ; probably he also did not hesitate to usurp the 
prerogatives of the church. Fearlessly, Blair weighed 
the actual situation, and spoke of the Governor's ob- 
structive policy, thus making a direct statement before 
the Council. For this action, he was suspended from 
further meetings, but soon had the satisfa»ction of 
learning that the King was surprised at the Govern- 
or's unwarranted action. 

As Deputy-Governor, Nicholson began by acknowl- 
edging the friendship of Blair, but it was not long 
before his disposition, vain and self-willed, obtained 
complete mastery over his feelings and his attitude. 
His assertiveness took the form of vituperation; he 
swore at his councilors, his actions became immoral, 
and in every way he made himself obnoxious. This 
was not to pass unnoticed by Blair, who warned the 
Governor of his tyranny, and awaited calmly the 
machinations he was assured would quickly follow. 
Nicholson at the time was in love, and his paying 
court was received with no evident encouragement ; in 
consequence, his wrath knew no bounds when he w^as 
told that Blair's brother, Archibald, was his supposed 
rival. 

By far the most weighty figure of the three was 
Governor Spotswood (1710), whose nobility of char- 
acter was none the less admired because of his over- 
keen guarding of royal power. This it was that 
blinded him and became the barrier between himself 
and Blair. For the two in many details sympathized 
one with the other, and the Governor's support of the 
educational policy was balanced by Blair's approval 



COLONIAL PERIOD 57 

of Spotswood's desire to penetrate the Blue Ridge 
mountains, and to settle the valley which lay beyond. 
We have already seen under what circumstances this 
was accomplished. 

The Church and State were now in juxtaposition; 
the close policy of the Governor was regarded with 
ill-favor by the House of Burgesses, inclined to be 
open in its expression. On the other hand, as willing 
as Blair was to abide strictly by the letter of the eccle- 
siastical law, and as wisely as he had shifted his view- 
point from one civil law to the other, in order to keep 
them separate, he would brook no interference with 
his own prerogatives. Herein, the policies of Blair 
and Spotswood clashed, and in consequence misunder- 
standings arose, during which Byrd and Blair found 
themselves pitted against each other in the preferred 
charges. The spirit of protest was assuming vital 
proportions. 

Historically, Blair is a character to be reckoned 
with; his efforts embrace a large part of colonial his- 
tory ; few have a record to place by his in comparison. 
The startling figures, first noted by Professor Tyler, 
should not be overlooked in an estimate: fifty-eight 
years as a missionary of the Church of England ; fifty- 
four years as Commissary of the Bishop of London; 
fifty years as President of William and Mary; and 
fifty years as a member of the King's Council, in 
which he likewise served as President. He was a true 
colonial force, a reformer typical of the healthy tissue 
of Southern life; not vitiated or limited by old con- 
servative ideas, but endeavoring to interpret all ac- 
tions, all policies, for the good of the greatest numbers. 

No one during this time, it may be truly said, had 
shown a distinctively historical sense, had indeed 
started out to write an authoritative account of colon- 
ization, based as much on sources as on observation. 
There were now sufficient documentary data and per- 



58 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

sonal records upon which to draw for a systematic 
narrative, and no one felt more suited for the self- 
appointed task than Robert Beverley (circa 1675- 
1716, although other authorities say 1670-1735), who 
had succeeded his father, in 1697, as clerk of the 
Council of Virginia, with Andros as Governor, and 
who, until 1705, when " The History and Present 
State of Virginia " was issued, became a close student 
of colonial ways and policies. 

I have used a copy of the second edition, embel- 
lished with plates graphically described in the text, — 
illustrations which had first appeared in a French 
translation. In general it may be claimed for Bev- 
erley that he was an extensive reader, and that with 
due credit to his sources, he drew upon them, quoting 
passages of salient significance. Besides which, his- 
torical fact did not seem to detract from the sense of 
human value, of poetic feeling with which he coped 
with natural environment. Show me your adjective 
and I will tell you how true a part of man the love 
of Nature is. 

Beverley had learned, nevertheless, that not only 
would the sequence of events which marked the 
progress of Virginia, be insufficient to indicate its 
essential value, but that the initial spirit contained in 
the early colonial colonization tract must be raised to 
the standard of historical accuracy. Akin to his age 
in the efflorescent manner of style, his attempt was to 
reach a comprehensive view of his subject. Therefore, 
he divided his book into four parts: ''(i.) The His- 
tory of the First Settlement of Virginia, and the Gov- 
ernment thereof, to the year 1706. (2.) The natural 
Productions and Conveniencies of the Country, Suited 
to Trade and Improvement. (3.) The Native In- 
dians, their Religion, Laws, and Customs, in War and 
Peace. (4.) The present State of the Country, as to 
the Polity of the Government, and the Improvements 



COLONIAL PERIOD 59 

of the Land, the loth of June. [By a Native and In- 
habitant of the Place. 2nd ed., 1722.]" 

In scope, this may not appear to be greater in pur- 
pose than what others had already accomplished, but 
whereas all previous efforts had been more or less 
casual, this new work had behind it considerable ex- 
perience. Beverley, as he avers, had from early youth 
taken notes on government and administration, 
" With no other Design than the Gratification of my 
own inquisitive Mind." He was all the more pre- 
pared to detect instantly the faulty enthusiasms and 
the very sweeping claims of other travelers, who not 
even coming as closely in contact with conditions as 
himself, yet returned to the mother country with 
seemingly authoritative accounts full of false exag- 
geration. This he found to be the case when he came 
to London in 1703, after service in the colony. A 
bookseller gave him a manuscript to read — Virginia 
and Carolina described in six sheets of paper. With 
innocent unconcern, Beverley began his task, noting 
the while those corrections which seemed to him de- 
sirable as well as imperative. But the author of 
these inadequate pages was not only faulty, had not 
only abridged the work of others, but had chosen with 
almost malicious intent those very passages for quo- 
tation which were most untrue. Beverley's report 
to the bookseller was relentless, and there dawned 
upon him the necessity of setting to the task himself. 
He felt himself equipped for the work, but there was 
a greater motive than this actuating him : 

" I should the rather undertake in Justice to So fine 
a Country; because it has been So misrepresented to 
the Common People of England, as to make them be- 
lieve, that the Servants in Virginia are made to draw 
in Cart and Plow, as Horses and Oxen do in Eng- 
land, and that the Country turns all People black, 
who go to live there, with other Such prodigious 



6o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Phantasms." Nor was it his intention, once the book 
was written, to have it included with any other per- 
son's compilation, such as Oldmixon, who, hearing of 
this opposition, let spleen against Beverley trickle from 
his pen point. The new historian, therefore, set to his 
work with consuming regard for accuracy; his pene- 
tration was keen, his mind logical, his examination 
analytical. He did not refrain from detecting faults 
in the country he was describing, although in the main 
his accounts are favorable ; he was quick to correct the 
statements of others, when they did not correspond 
with what came under his immediate intelligence or 
observation. He was never caustic, but his humor 
was dry, incisive, and telling. Quoting one authority, 
Beverley adds : " He tells of Camels brought by 
Some Guinea Ships to Virginia; but had not then 
heard how they throve with us; — I don't know how 
he should, for there never was any such thing done." 

Thus, he sets the standard for historical statement 
according to his own investigations or observations; 
he would not accept data second hand; and the bold 
assertions which he read were regarded by him with 
suspicion. It is well to hear his own intention : " The 
Account that I have given in the following Sheets is 
plain and true, and if it be not written with So much 
Judgment, or in So good a Method and Stile as I 
could wish, yet in the Truth of it I rest fully Satisfied. 
In this Edition I have also retrench'd Such Partic- 
ulars as related only to private Transactions and 
Characters in the Historical Part; as being too di- 
minutive to be transmitted to Posterity, and Set down 
the Succession of the Governors, with the more gen- 
eral Incidents of their Government, without Reflection 
upon the private Conduct of any Person." 

This history of Virginia is a direct document, but 

it has as well the advantage of being a simple narra- 

'sj tive of some picturesqueness. These early chroniclers 



COLONIAL PERIOD 6i 

because of their nearness to the scene are not obscure, 
nor does their humanity become imbedded in subtle 
motives; they describe what they see and their com- 
ment is to the point, — ^naive in expression but sharply 
outlined; this is true whether it relate to commerce, 
religion, or immediate social condition. With con- 
siderable skill, Beverley's narrative paints the improve- 
ments and deficiencies. His style is in some respects 
a fair indication of the telling- art of the man, for 
Beverley was often lost in the m€re human value of 
the scene. He writes: 

" Sir Edmund Andros being upon a Progress one 
Summer, call'd at a poor Man's House in Stafford 
County for Water. There came out to him an ancient 
Woman, and with her, a lively brisk Lad about twelve 
Years old. The Lad was So ruddy, and fair, that his 
Complection gave the Governor a Curiosity to ask 
Some Questions concerning him ; and to his great Sur- 
prise was told, that he was the Son of that Woman, 
at "](> Years of Age. His Excellency, Smiling at this 
Improbability, enquir'd what Sort of Man had been 
his Father? To this the good Woman made no reply, 
but instantly ran, and led her Husband to the Door, 
who was then above loo Years old. He confirmed 
all that the Woman had Said about the Lad, and, not- 
withstanding his great Age, was Strong in his Limbs, 
and Voice; but had lost his Sight. The Woman for 
her part was without Complaint and Seem'd to retain 
a Vigor very uncommon at her Years. Sir Edmund 
was So pleas'd with this extraordinary Account, that, 
after having made himself known to them, he offer'd 
to take care of the Lad. But they would by no means 
be persuaded to part with him. However, he gave 
them 20 Pounds." 

This is an agreeable picture, excellently well painted. 
Beverley was always keen for this warmth of native 
life ; he was equally as intent when it came to obtaining 



62 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

information from others. Incongruous as it might 
seem, he describes how, in order to unloose the tongue 
of an Indian sufficiently to make him talk freely of the 
redman's conception of God, he plied him with strong 
cider. Sometimes, nevertheless, his enthusiasm be- 
came slightly over-emphasized, but not for any length 
of time. And however much he tried to counteract 
the reports which were being spread to the detriment 
of the colony, and to the discouragement of those 
wishing to become indentured servants, Beverley did 
not pass by unnoticed the besetting failing of the 
whole Southern country. For his history closes with 
these ominous words of criticism and warning: 

'' They depend altogether upon the Liberality of 
Nature, without endeavoring to improve its Gifts by 
Art or Industry. They Spunge upon the Blessings 
of a warm Sun, and a Fruitful Soil, and almost grutch 
the Pains of gathering in the Bounties of the Earth. 
I should be ashamed to publish this Slothful Indolence 
of my Countrymen, but that I hope it will Some time 
or other rouse them out of their Lethargy, and excite 
them to make the most of all those happy Advantages 
which Nature has given them; and if it does this, I 
am Sure they will have the Goodness to forgive me." 

The establishment of a center of learning in Virginia 
attracted several worthy men to the faculties, among 
whom the Reverend Hugh Jones stands distinct for 
his literary accomplishment. Holding the position of 
Rector of Jamestown, he likewise presided as profes- 
sor of mathematics in the college. Having the distinc- 
tion of being chaplain of the colonial Assembly, he is 
just as unique for being the first to write text-books 
in this country — an English grammar, an Accidence to 
Christianity, and an Accidence to Mathematics. But 
the work by which he is known is his critical treatise 
on Virginia, wherein he shows a power to be pic- 
turesque, to be active, to be analytic in reaching the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 63 

crux of any situation, to be synthetic when any new 
scheme is unfolded. His book bears the title : " The 
Present State of Virginia, giving- a particular and 
Short Account of the Indian, English and Negro In- 
habitants of the Colony, Shewing their Religion, Man- 
ners, Government, Trading, Way of Living, &c., with 
a description of the Country. From whence is inferred 
a Short view of Maryland and North Carolina. To 
which is added, Schemes and Propositions for the 
better Promotion of Learning, Religion, Inventions, 
Manufactures, and Trade in Virginia and the other 
Plantations. For the Information of the Curious, 
and for the Service of Such as are engaged in the 
Propagation of the Gospel and Advancement of 
Learning, and for the Use of all Persons concerned in 
the Virginia Trade and Plantation." (1724.) 

This very clearly indicates that Jones has in the 
major part of his book simply retraced the ground 
covered by others; the advantage in examining some- 
what closely the different divisions of the work lies 
in the point of view, which is more critical, and more 
keen in its insight into the future effect of present 
evils. " I have industriously avoided the ornamental 
Dress of Rhetorical Flourishes, esteeming them unfit 
for the naked Truth of historical Relations, and im- 
proper for the Purpose of General Propositions." The 
life of the colony has interest for him ; also the native 
capacity for doing things, the public participation in 
the Governor's balls. He recognizes a transplanted 
English gentry in the first families that roll in Coach 
or Chaise toward Virginia's capital; he has sensed 
the economic reasons for the disinclination of the Vir- 
ginia gentleman to live in towns. With an almost 
prophetic attitude, he points out the evils of slavery; 
and thus in the midst of a civilization which Jones 
has unconsciously indicated as peculiar to soil and 
climate, he tries to reckon with the free and easy 



64 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

manners of a patriarchal form of life. By taste and 
inclination, the Southern planter is a business man; 
he does not read, but talks and appeals by word; 
Jones knew his limitations, his style. Through his 
text-books he tried to counteract this book indolence. 
He was used to being waited on; he did not regard 
labor as worthy of notice by a gentleman, and more 
willingly embraced horse-racing or cock-fightino-. 
The details are minute appertaining to the country 
life of the hospitable planter. There is a tone which 
deplores the waste of energy and the overlavishness 
of Nature. In other words, to this writer, the South- 
ern people were epicures who were wasteful in their 
hospitaHty and plentiful in all things pertaining to 
their palates. 

The white servants were particularly considered 
by him — the three classes of wage, indentured and 
criminal folk, the latter of whom they could have 
very well dispensed with. Jones shows practical eco- 
nomic insight and is unfailing in his observation of 
the condition of the comparatively few poor, and of 
the factors who managed and directed the business 
of the stores and warehouses. He seemed to be fully 
aware of the activity all about him ; was a reader of 
Smith and of Beverley; was naturally keenly alive 
to the energy and responsibility of Blair; and from 
his knowledge, he began a species of constructive rea- 
soning that took shape in various schemes for the 
betterment of the higher life of the colony. 

In regard to the churches, Jones comments on the 
isolation of meeting-houses, the great distances com- 
pelling rich famihes to have their own rector, and 
making the head of a parish practically an independent 
minister, who could develop moral customs of his 
own. The parish schools were rudimentary and a 
crying need to him was the baptizing of Indians and 
Negroes; this latter desire was not to improve their 



COLONIAL PERIOD 65 

chances in a world spiritual, but to turn them into 
better servants, '' for Christianity encourages and 
orders them to become more humble." Approaching 
the subject from the ultra-critical standpoint, it is 
understood how Jones's thoughts were centered on the 
Accidence of Christianity. 

The views expressed, whether economic, religious, 
or educational, are not narrow ; they are characterized 
by some reading, by wide investigations which in- 
cluded the States of Maryland and North Carolina; 
they are not overlavish in praise, they are bold and 
direct in condemnation. In fact, as Jones says, " I de- 
liver my Sentiments in as free and plain a manner as 
I can. Specifying what Redundancies or Deficiencies 
occur to my Opinion." His schemes are manifold, not 
pertaining to one interest, but well apportioned in all 
directions. He would have a more definite educa- 
tional system, to be run on a financial basis which 
was practical as well as just. He had watched closely 
the difficulties under which Blair had labored, and 
he learned the hampering influences besetting a col- 
lege. When he proposes improvements in the direc- 
tion of the religious welfare in Virginia, he again 
speaks from experience. His conviction is that no- 
where more than in the colonies is an efificient clergy 
needed; and though there was a rooted prejudice 
against such a thing as an ecclesiastical court, the 
morals and practices should be submitted to the rigor 
of constant visitation and searching examination. 
Thus determined in his opinions, he was no less firm 
in regard to the arts, inventions, manufactures, and 
trade schemes which would conduce to the betterment 
of Virginia. 

These men who wrote in this manner were distinc- 
tive for the attention which they paid to all the activi- 
ties of their immediate life; they were truly citizens 
in the sense that they tried to express themselves on 



66 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the questions of the day. They were not literary 
men; they were dealing with facts, with immediate 
conditions. They were all more or less economists; 
in this field they received their important stimulus. 
They did not chant from the shadow of the meeting- 
house, but stood in the midst of their plantations, 
reckoning how best to profit by their acres. Still, 
though this material criticism is the one generally 
taken by planters, it must not be forgotten that already 
a college had been founded and the clergy were be- 
coming better prepared for the work before them. 
The cultural element was strong, if not austere. Be- 
cause of this latter characteristic, New England has 
always held dominance as being more conservative. 

A figure rising head and shoulders above the 
colonial men of his time was Colonel William Byrd, 
of Westover (1674- 1744), an interesting contrast to 
the thorough, disinterested and earnest James Blair. 
He is the typical landed proprietor; his family the 
romantic exponents of that aristocratic society which 
has blinded so many to the other current of Southern 
life upon which the present life has risen. Without 
our old aristocracy, we would have been so much the 
poorer; they developed that courage, that inde- 
pendence, that respect for honor, that sense of duty, 
that adherence to locality, which sustained us in 
the hour of carnage, and in the after silence, when 
the land lay in ruins. The Byrds were all possessors 
of charming personalities; the romance of Evelyn, 
so constantly the source for novels, and the regal 
largeness of Westover are not, however, sufficient to 
disguise certain phases which bear upon the funda- 
mental peculiarities of Southern life. For this rea- 
son alone it is desirous to enter upon some lengthy 
account of the Byrds, their holdings and their social 
state. 

Writers lay much stress upon the fact that the land 




^^ 



From a painting owned by Miss Stewart, of Braok Hill. Autograph from^he Virginia Histor- 
ical Society. Illustration and autograph used by courtesy of Houghton Miflflin Company. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 67 

holdings of the country gentleman, possible only where 
a system of servitude was maintained, aided in the 
creation of an aristocratic class of Southern people. 
The Stuarts, after the Restoration, encouraged this 
exclusiveness and in their political appointments fa- 
vored those who were most comfortably circumstanced. 
These men possessed certain ideals, and developed a 
domineering family pride that assumed the right to 
govern. The laws regulating the distribution of land 
were easily evaded ; the first rule allotting fifty acres to 
a colonist expanded, and by 1699, the Council con- 
ceded the right to buy importation privileges for the 
insignificant sum of five shillings. Naturally, estates 
increased at a rapid rate and so likewise did slavery, 
for white labor had proven a failure under conditions 
which allowed the indenture to expire and the ser- 
vant, after a few years, to become a land holder. The 
economic condition thus forced a social state, and the 
immediate result was that servitude increased and the 
white servant or wage earner, encumbered by the re- 
strictions of the Virginia law, hastened to North Car- 
oHna. Virginia might receive, as she did, an influx 
of Cavaliers boasting good blood, but what was 
gained at the top was naught in comparison with what 
was lost at the bottom. The Cavalier was soon assim- 
ilated ; the debtor after serving his time was still 
looked down upon in Virginia, so he found it easier 
to face life anew in North Carolina ; the servant, freed 
from bondage, and wanting land to till, found the tide- 
water district already overcrowded and so had to 
choose between the rocky and unproductive land, for 
which a large price was asked, or else had to move 
away. The Virginian therefore moved, land being 
comparatively cheap in North Carolina ; the migration 
assumed such proportions that the Board of Trade 
gave the matter serious consideration in 1708. With 
the appearance of the Byrd family in 1670, the popula- 



68 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tion of Virginia was a fixed quantity and received no 
infusion from the outside until 1730, when the Scotch- 
Irish overran the Valley of the Shenandoah. 

Unfortunately, the immediate members of the Byrd 
family were too imbued with gentry ideals, were too 
much of the squire class, ever to become independent 
of the mother country. In their instance, we may 
follow the growth of the line through three genera- 
tions, just as in the case of the Lords Baltimore, and 
we may trace the effect of a system of living that 
created its highest point of brilliancy in William 
Byrd^^, and, between 1670 and 1777 — ^a little more 
than a century, which marked the arrival of Byrd ^ 
and the decadence of Byrd^^^ (who was with Brad- 
dock and Washington, whose son was an English 
captain in the Revolution, and who came to an ig- 
nominious end by killing himself) — showed the de- 
fects of Virginia life. 

The position of William Byrd^ was defined by his 
maternal grandfather, Thomas Stegg, and further bet- 
tered by his uncle, the second Thomas Stegg. Both 
men had wealth and colonial standing, which served 
their young descendant well. When Byrd was called 
to assume his social responsibilities, he took unto 
himself a wife — daughter of a Cavalier soldier, 
who had hied to Virginia to escape Puritan rule, 
— and settled upon his uncle's estate of 1800 acres. 
He immediately began to manifest that keenness for 
trade which made him not only a powerful merchant, 
but also a shrewd bargainer with the Indians. He 
may have been limited in his view by the demands of 
his environment, but there was an innate sense of the 
practical in his deaHngs, evident in the orders he sent 
to the Barbadoes for commodities, slaves, and special 
laborers. 

In public life, he rapidly rose to distinction. But 
it seems that he never allowed civic events to inter- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 69 

fere with his own interests. Despite the fact that 
Berkeley had benefited by Stegg's will, — being a friend 
of the family, — the Governor was not zealous in his 
desire to leave good enough alone as to the trade with 
Indians. In interfering, he thus stirred up, or rather 
hastened, Bacon's Rebellion, which enlisted the sym- 
pathies of Byrd, because, no doubt, he saw future cur- 
tailment of his trading privileges. But no sooner 
did the uprising take on a more revolutionary aspect 
than he hastened to resign, in no way harmed, as 
far as public opinion was concerned. 

He had the instincts of the monopolist, as was 
soon after evident when he proposed to take over 
all the privileges of trade with the Indians, assuring 
satisfactory relations, prompt payment of tribute, and 
thorough surveying of unexplored land. In this re- 
spect, he was much more an interested party than 
his son, who later, while accumulating properties, did 
not do so with quite the same selfish grasp. Notwith- 
standing his bid, however, Byrd was defeated, and he 
saw the opportunity of curtailing free trade once 
more disappear from his view. 

Always alert to social rank and pecuniary benefit, 
he next sought the post of Auditor, and sailed for 
England to bring influence to bear on his appoint- 
ment. The title was not free, but nothing daunted, 
Byrd speculated and made a deal with the incumbent, 
whereby he was to share the post, collecting quit- 
rents as well as taxes, which were paid in tobacco. 
The constant fluctuation in the value of this last com- 
modity resulted in difUculties with the Parson's sal- 
aries, which, as history indicates, enlisted the initial 
powers of Patrick Henry. 

Once collected, this tobacco was sold, the conten- 
tion between King and Council resting on whether 
the disposal should be public or private. Byrd's 
natural trading inclination may have led him into 



L-- 



70 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

some subtle dealings which kept his accounts from 
balancing, but notwithstanding, his general character 
frees him from any grave accusation. Besides which, 
he continued to rise in position, the height of his am- 
bition — to be President of the Council — ^becoming real- 
ized shortly before his death. He was active in all 
public matters, and we notice further his keen interest 
in the contract for building the Chapel of William and 
Mary College. 

Wealth in the colony meant a corresponding in- 
crease of social prestige. Byrd bettered his home with 
every betterment of his business interests, finally mov- 
ing to Westover, where he had sent from abroad the 
necessary comforts of life. When he ordered his 
wine, he likewise saw to it that he was commissioned 
to supply the Council with the same, thereby gaining 
in the whole transaction. Through all trade, he 
moved with dignity — the pride of a land-owner, 
aware of the primitiveness of the country, inasmuch 
as his daughters were educated in England. One of 
these girls became the wife of Robert Beverley, the 
colonial historian. 

Byrd's mind was always fixed on increasing his es- 
tate, which finally grew to large proportions, beginning 
as we have noted, with 1800 acres, and totaling 26,231 
acres. Much of this represented investment on trad- 
ing profits, despite the difficulties experienced in 
importing and in exporting, as well as the difficulties of 
storing and the losses consequent thereon. As one 
historian has written concerning colonial commerce: 
" It was more frequent to find competition among the 
Virginians to get shipping facilities than among the 
ships to get freight." The land system was so in- 
grained in Virginia, that any move to give the middle 
man a chance was instantly handicapped. It is well, 
as a suggestion of Southern deficiency, to note that 
in 1 69 1, when there was an evident desire on the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 71 

part of some to encourage the building of cities, the 
rich planter ardently opposed any legislation to that 
effect. 

In character, Byrd was genial, which added a cer- 
tain grace to his business procHvities. It is neces- 
sary thus to record his life, so as to explain the in- 
herited traits as well as the inherited responsibilities 
which add to the picture of the next representative. 
When the father's death took place, after a number 
of sorrowful years (bereft of daughters and wife, and 
with only a housekeeper by), every worldly possession 
was bequeathed to the son, even to certain local posts. 
The difference between the two was one of degree 
rather than of kind; they both possessed a certain 
culture, and a certain practical turn. The son was 
by far more devoted to culture, studying both in Lon- 
don and in Holland, where he was a purchaser of 
books, which afterwards formed part of the valuable 
Westover library, famed as the most extensive library 
at the time in the colonies. Evidently, with his 
mind on eventually returning to Virginia (where he 
was born on March 28, 1674), he paid some attention 
to the conditions of trade, finally entering Middle 
Temple to study law. He was a sociable young fel- 
low, a quality which never deserted him. As evi- 
dence of his tenacity of spirit, it is told how, when a 
student, in 1696, he became close friend of Benjamin 
Lynde, who was to be Chief Justice of Massachusetts. 
In 1736, he wrote to the latter in jaunty manner: " If 
I could persuade our captain of the guard-ship to take 
a cruise to Boston at a proper season, I would come 
and beat up your quarters at Salem. I want to see 
what alterations forty years have wrought in you since 
we used to intrigue together in the Temple." He 
never lost his English outlook. 

When Byrd returned to the colonies in 1696, he 
found his position practically fixed for him, and a 



72 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

few months after his arrival he was seated as mem- 
ber of the Assembly. The next year he sailed for 
England to represent Andros against Blair, a cir- 
cumstance which has already been commented upon, 
and evidently his transactions were pleasing to his 
factions, inasmuch as, in 1698, he received the further 
appointment of agent for the colony, a post which 
he retained until 1702. There was an amount of deli- 
cacy attached to the office which Byrd met with seem- 
ing tact and grace ; but on the other hand, in spite of 
the fact that the King was brought into opposition 
with him, his life was not without its attractions which 
his genial temper made the most of. It is an agree- 
able picture we obtain of his social and literary life. 
We know that as a Fellow of the Royal Society, he 
read a paper in 1697, being ''An Account of a Negro 
Boy that is dappled in Several Places of his Body 
with White Spots." 

In 1706, Byrd married Lucy, daughter of Gen- 
eral Daniel Park, inheriting thereby more worldly 
goods. Four years afterwards, when Spotswood 
reached Virginia as Lieutenant-General, there began 
a regime which showed the representative of the Crown 
to be a tenacious advocate of royal prerogative, and 
hence brought this power in conflict with the rights of 
the Council. For the latter had developed within them 
the spirit of self-government, and Spotswood's tight 
rein only served to make more evident the unity of 
colony sentiment which grew later into a force 
prompting the Revolution. 

Byrd was deeply involved in the struggle with the 
Lieutenant-General, who assailed the manner in which 
accounts were rendered him of the quit-rent collec- 
tions. Perhaps there was an increasing feeling, on 
the part of the colonists, that the Crown was unduly 
anxious to gather unto itself the moneys which should 
have benefited the growing community, for, in 171 5, 



COLONIAL PERIOD 73 

Byrd was in England, emphasizing the necessity for 
using the quit-rents to make " home-improvements." 

It is not our province to record the bitter antag- 
onism that increased between Byrd and Spotswood, 
in which the former exhibited his tendency to sar- 
casm. He opposed another attempt to monopohze 
Indian trade, a condition which his father would have 
welcomed, having himself sought ; he opposed any en- 
tertainment of the prerogative of the general court 
by the acknowledgment of the priority of the King's 
prerogative. In all of this opposition we recognize 
in Byrd no loss of English sentiment, but only the 
emphasis of a feeling which has always actuated the 
English since the days of the Magna Charta. But 
during all this feud, the personal relations between 
the two men were not wholly opposed, although they 
must have been modified somewhat by Spotswood's 
attempt to remove Byrd and Blair. Indeed, it was 
because the latter feared this step on the part of 
the Board of Trade, that he eventually gave way 
before the persistent assertion of the Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral. 

Byrd was absent from the colony for a number 
of years, stretching over different periods. He him- 
self acknowledged that his country life partly de- 
stroyed the zest which London had formerly conveyed 
to him. His daughters, the famous beauty Evelyn, 
and Wilhelmina, were being educated abroad and 
in 1 716, his wife, suddenly seized with smallpox, died 
of the plague. When finally, having married again 
in 1724, he returned to his Virginia estate, he settled 
down to the regular life of an English country gentle- 
man. 

Byrd never quite relinquished his civic activity, and 
moreover, his brain was too plastic, too sensitive in 
its flow of human sympathy to remain isolated from 
the general movement of life. It was after 1726 that 



74 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

his literary career began, for it must be remembered 
that, historically, the boundary disputes between Vir- 
ginia and the CaroHnas arose in 1727. Byrd's useful- 
ness in this survey kept him in public demand until 
1736, when, at the age of sixty-two, he did his last 
official work for the colony. 

It is well to note the characteristics of Byrd which 
made him popular in England and in Virginia. His 
delicacy of taste was seen in the well-ordered slope of 
his grounds to the river, in the individual interest he 
gave to book-buying, and in his liking for pictures. He 
was a product of his age, cursed with the prevalent 
desire for land. From his father, he inherited an in- 
clination to speculate, and he purchased from North 
Carolina 20,000 acres which he called " The Land of 
Eden"; he later increased his estate of 26,231 acres 
to 179,440 acres. This enormous acquisition was partly 
obtained, it must be added in justice to Byrd, for 
the purpose of distributing it to desirable emigrants. 
When he died on August 26, 1744, he was neverthe- 
less a disappointed man, for the Crown had not ade- 
quately recognized his services. In some ways, he was 
in advance of his time, for he congratulated Ogle- 
thorpe when he heard that negroes and rum had been 
excluded from Georgia. Perhaps he uttered a South- 
ern sentiment when he warned Oglethorpe to beware 
of the " Saints of New England." 

It is an agreeable task to record Byrd's activity as 
a writer. In observation, he correlates a practical 
consideration of the immediate needs with an acutely 
live interest in the humor of conditions. Some critics 
apply the term ''sprightly" to his style, a quality 
very dominant in his work. But there was some- 
thing more than that. Let us acknowledge that his 
manner is somewhat fraught with the characteristics 
marking Addison and Steele, who w^ere his contem- 
poraries ; let us also claim that had he lived wholly in 



COLONIAL PERIOD 75 

England, this sprightliness, which at times partakes 
of the quaint nothing of Pepys in the observation of 
small manners, might have turned to the same lit- 
erary form. Nevertheless, however English in feel- 
ing, however contemporary in style, his form of 
thought, his cast of observation, his reasoning tend- 
encies, actuated by the environment rather than by 
the time, — in other words, his activity from the Vir- 
ginian, rather than from the English, point of view en- 
title him to be regarded as much of a Southerner, 
considering the initial formative force of colonial in- 
dividuality, as Franklin was an American. 

Byrd's idealism was fraught with a full realization 
of practical conditions. It was his very ability to re- -- 
veal the truth in human fashion that enriched his 
humor, making it quaint, naive, piquant. His matter- 
of-fact records are permeated with the elements of a 
pure comic spirit which do not hide but enhance the 
essential details. His humor is never unreasonable, is 
never gross ; if any defect is to be found in it at all — 
a defect which is none the less a charm — it rests in 
a childish credence which is shown in the superstitions 
and countless marvels reported to him. 

Byrd's chief literary contributions comprise: (i) 
"History of the Dividing Line" (1728), written 
from manuscript notes taken during the expedition; 
(2) "A Progress to the Mines" (1732) ; and (3) "A 
Journey to the Land of Eden" (1733) ; to these may 
be added miscellaneous letters of a business, social, 
and family character, contained in the " Westover 
Manuscripts." In all of these he exhibits a wonder- 
ful understanding of the relation which existed, and 
which should exist, between the people and the soil. 
He comprehended the defects of the Southern system, v ' 
he was aware of the benefits of husbandry, he pos- V 
sessed an accurate discrimination; he was indeed a 
political economist, as were most colonial writers. 



76 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

But he, likewise, was thoroughly seasoned with the 
real literary sense, while the value, the permanency 
of his good-natured gibing is not without its deeper 
intention to serve as a moral and social corrective. 
He had an imagination also, one which could carry 
an event beyond its immediate occurrence, which could 
endow incidents with a human potency; that is why 
at times I am almost tempted to say that, in his treat- 
ment of animals, he may be considered as the first 
American Ernest Thompson Seton. Certainly he is 
a greater lover of animals than Seton, in this respect, 
perhaps, being closer to La Fontaine. 

As an observer during the North Carolina expedi- 
tion, Byrd became fully aware of the slothfulness of 
his neighbors; unlike Smith, he did not show a ready 
wit in suggesting a way to alter this indifference, 
but it is evident throughout his narrative that he was 
aware of the danger which lay in the easy response 
of the land ; sometimes the people would " take more 
pains to Seek for Wild Fruit in the Woods, than 
they would have taken in tilling the ground." Again, 
we hear him saying that to fell a tree rather than to 
climb it, is "the Shortest Way (which in this country 
is always the best)." His eye was ever quick to 
see the lack of initiative around him, the desire to 
escape work as well as debts. One cannot but de- 
tect in Byrd a certain contemptuous attitude toward 
North Carolina colonists, but his enthusiasm rose to 
poetic heights, drawing from his ready source of 
literary similes and metaphors in describing the nat- 
ural surroundings. 

A few pages of Byrd's text will convince the reader 
that he had a remarkably feeling response to the value 
of words in description; this only comes through a 
certain cultural refinement, and through innate sen- 
sitiveness to beauty which proclaims to a degree the 
artist. We meet with such phrases as the " ex- 



COLONIAL PERIOD 77 

quisitely soft " down of geese, the " fear of growing 
too tender," " a clear sky, spangled with stars," the 
" charming river," " the trees grow very kindly," " the 
purling stream," trees with " vines marry'd to them, 
if I may be allow'd to speak so poetically." At one 
time, they passed a " limpid stream, and the Murmur 
it made, in tumbling over the Rocks, caus'd the Situ- 
ation to appear very Romantick, and had almost made 
some of the Company Poetical, tho' they drank 
nothing but Water." 

Another characteristic of Byrd is that, while in 
many respects he was a thorough-going believer in 
caste, and while his aristocratic bearing was quite 
fitted to the comforts of a coach, as a surveyor or a 
commissioner of survey he proved himself democratic, 
at the same time that he was a lover of the open. 
It is not surprising, in view of this, to find him re- 
garding natural obstacles as an excellent means of 
proving one's horsemanship. 

These, we believe, represent fairly Byrd's claim to 
be regarded as one of the chief colonial writers in 
the South. Not only does he paint his scene agreeably, 
but vividly ; he does not bore one with too much tech- 
nical enumeration, and when he has to be prosaic, 
his style is too unctuous to pall. One says, after dip- 
ping here and there — and in most colonial writing, a 
reader might dip with advantage — that the writer 
has the ability to hold attention through charm, 
through a love and relish for life itself. But through- 
out, though it is American soil he praises, Byrd is 
still the Englishman, however much an English col- 
onist. When he sees the Southern mountains, his 
thoughts are that here the government has await- 
ing it " Natural Fortifications before the French." 
And surely no more patriotic Fourth of July could 
have been celebrated than the King's birthday, ob- 
served in the wilderness ! 



78 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

In no sense ought we to lose sight of the fact that 
this colonial period in Southern Literature affords 
us no opportunity of placing a direct value upon the 
writing done as an artistic product; the spirit 
prompting the narrative was not that which is char- 
acterized as love of adventure; it was purely a spirit 
prompted by utilitarian needs. But whereas we have 
been led to believe the Southern colonist an adventurer 
only, it is of significance to note that these early 
chronicles were nearly always prompted by a definite 
desire to encourage colonizers on the one hand, and 
to counteract ill reports on the other. In view of 
such object or aim, it is of profit to measure the spon- 
taneous feeling which permeates the colonial attitude 
' — an attitude that developed a love of soil, a realiza- 
tion of what was best for those attached to the soil, and 
a gradual pride in the life established to accord with 
the economic and social life fostered by the soil. 
These colonial writers were ardent defenders of their 
locaHty, and they were often pushed into their liter- 
ary undertakings through moral recognition of Mieir 
duty to their environment. 

William Stith, the historian (i 689-1 755), was 
such a man; in him we note strongly defined an in- 
dependence which actuated him to speak openly, in 
an attempted detached manner — as a colonist rather 
^than as an Englishman. Of worthy family, his uncle 
being Sir John Randolph, he himself attained the 
honored position of President of William and Mary 
College, after which, retiring and having upon his 
hands much leisure, he bethought him to further aid 
his public with the service of penning " The History 
of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia 
(1753)-" His critical sense likewise had been suf- 
ficiently sharpened to see the weakness of his con- 
temporary sources, and in all of his work, whether 
it be in running narrative or in quoting, he exhibits 



COLONIAL PERIOD 79 

a particular care and an excellent independence of 
view. For he writes, to take a typical statement : 

"As for King James I, I think & Speak of him, 
with the Same Freedom & Indifferency, that I 
would think & Speak of any other Man, long Since 
dead ; & therefore, I have no way restrained my Stile, 
in freely exposing his weak and injurious Proceed- 
ings." 

His zealous care to reproduce only accuracy, 
led him to desire the inclusion of numberless papers 
of curious worth, besides original excerpts from the 
records. But on account of the possibilities of his 
work exceeding one volume, when the danger w^as 
that his countrymen might have to pay " above half 
a Pistole," the book was brought to a close. Not- 
withstanding, his tone was sufficiently outspoken to 
note the spirit of revolution. He declares in his 
preface : 

" If we have a Right to all the Liberties, Franchises, 
and Immunities of Englishmen, . . . what Lib- 
erty, Franchise, or Immunity is dearer or more essen- 
tial to Englishmen, than to be Subject to Such Laws, 
as are enacted, and to be liable to no Taxes, but what 
are laid upon them, by their own Consent, in a Par- 
liamentary way ?" 

When we discoursed upon William Byrd's point 
of view as regards the province of North Carolina, 
we mentioned John Lawson as one of the Commis- 
sion which encountered the hardships in the Di- 
viding Line Survey. It is very natural that the fol- 
lowing should stand to his credit : *' A New Voyage 
;to Carolina ; Containing the Exact Description & 
Natural History of that Country; Together with the 
Present State thereof. And a Journal of a Thousand 
Miles, Travel'd thro' Several Nations of Indians, Giv- 
ing a particular Account of their Customs, Manners, 
etc. By John Lawson, Gent. Surveyor-General of 



8o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

North Carolina (London. Printed in the year 1709)." 
As an address to the Lords Proprietors of the colony, 
he recommends it for its Truth, " A Gift," he adds, 
with naivete, " which every Author may be Master 
of, if he will." It is worth noting that he bemoans the 
type of colonists peopling his land, for the traders 
are possessors of *' slender education," while the 
French show their wisdom by shipping over Clergy- 
men and Gentlemen, who, with a larger intellectual 
equipment, are better able to judge of the true colonial 
conditions. 

Like all early writers, there is an easy confidence 
in Lawson's statements, backed as they were by a trav- 
eling experience of eight years. There is no attempt 
made by him other than plain statement, which to 
him is " preferable to a Smooth Stile, accompany'd 
with Falsities & Hyperboles." He was also markedly 
disinterested in his observation, for he had only 
been in this country since 1700, during which year, 
while in Rome, he had been persuaded to turn his face 
to the West. In his description, in the minute record- 
ing of details, he in no wise surpasses others who have 
practically covered the same ground. Yet there is a 
decided contrast between Byrd's condescending view of 
North Carolina inferiority and the bright, hope- 
ful and luxuriant picture sketched by Lawson. The 
colonists had trained eyes ; through necessity, through 
interest, they observed everything of physical and social 
import; that is why the work, though seeking to be 
unified, is largely fragmentary, and as typical on one 
page as on another. The writers viewed things with 
a freshness that was quite as much due to their new- 
ness as to their nearness. Lawson's narrative is 
largely favorable; he pictures the lands fruitful, the 
planters easy and hospitable, the rivers spacious and 
running through " noble Prospect." His enthusiasm, 



COLONIAL PERIOD 8i 

perhaps too colored, often reached poetic fervor, as in 
his description of Sapona River: 

" This most pleasant River may be something 
broader than the Thames at Kingston, keeping a con- 
tinual pleasant warbling Noise, with its reverberating 
on the bright Marble Rocks. It is beautified with a 
numerous Train of Swans, and other sorts of Water- 
Fowl, not common, though extraordinary pleasing 
to the Eye. The forward Spring welcomed us with 
her innumerable Train of small Choristers, which 
inhabit those fair Banks; the Hills redoubling, and 
adding Sweetness to their melodious Tunes by their 
Shrill Echoes. One side of the River is hemm*d in 
with mountaing Ground, the other Side proving as 
rich a Soil to the Eye of a knowing Person with us, 
as any this Western World can afford." 

The historical student will discern throughout the 
colonial writings a feeling of local pride that often 
overflowed into a most pronounced form of criticism. 
Byrd did not hesitate to offer his opinion of the state 
of North Carolina, and in the case of Georgia and 
South Carolina, Alexander Garden did not hesitate 
to condemn the proceedings of George Whitefield, 
who from the moment of his arrival in the province 
of Oglethorpe, upset the established canons of re- 
ligion, and himself opposed the restrictions placed 
upon negro slave employment. The physical con- 
dition of the soil demanded black labor in Georgia; 
pressure was brought to bear upon the subject, with 
the idea, as Whitefield himself wrote to the Trustees, 
December 6, 1748, "that Georgia never can or will be 
a flourishing province without negroes are allowed." 
It was a case of proving to the Trustees that black 
labor was superior to white, especially as the time 
service of the whites was either expiring or not 
being fulfilled. Therefore, in 1741, Whitefield se- 



S2 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

cured land in Carolina which he called " Providence/' 
and worked it with negro labor, announcing his in- 
tention of supporting his Orphan House at Bethesda, 
Georgia, with the proceeds; in this establishment he 
did some of his most striking charitable work. 

Alexander Garden (1685-1756) figures in the op- 
position against Whitefield; he was a man of pro- 
nounced learning and piety, and his literary activity 
was purely of a religious trend. Reaching America 
as rector of St. Philip's, Charleston, he likewise as- 
sumed the position of Commissary of the Bishop of 
London for the two Carolinas, Georgia, and the Ba- 
hama Islands. This was in 1720, so that by 1740, 
when he haled Whitefield before the ecclesiastical 
court in Charleston for violations of the canons of the 
church, he was sufficiently established in public favor, 
as well as in church power, to urge Whitefield's sus- 
pension. During 1740, he wrote six letters against 
Methodism, and his sermons likewise were aimed in 
the same direction. From the literary point of view, 
the contents of these writings can largely be passed' 
over; it is only necessary to glance cursorily through 
one as an indication of the spirit moving the South 
Carolina divine. The South in its religious history was 
more overwrought by the sectarian movement than 
the North, which was predominantly under the influ- 
ence of Puritanism. One of the essential differences 
between the Upper and the Lower South is found in 
the solidarity of the Church of England throughout 
the former and the disintegrating forces of sectarian- 
ism in the latter, which resulted in a diversity of sec- 
tarian schools, and in a consequent weakening of gen- 
eral education. 

But to return to Garden, who may well be charac- 
terized by a letter written to a third party, concerning 
Whitefield and his Orphan House. Naturally his view 
is a prejudiced one and likewise an incensed one; 



COLONIAL PERIOD 83 

it represents fairly well the alarm caused by the 
advent of Methodism* in the South, a movement 
contemptuously styled " Franticks " by its opposers. 
The value of Garden to us is that by his temper he 
measures one of the social forces which marked the de- 
velopment of the colonial South. Indeed, as he says, 
there were bitterness and virulency in abundance, and 
if Whitefield hurled denunciations upon the Church 
of England, finding Garden in his way, he must have 
used all the energy in his power to set public opinion 
against him. 

Garden may have repented the strong flavor of his 
anathemas against Methodism, but his conscience up- 
held him in his ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the 
worldly position of Whitefield. If he turned the court 
upon the offender, it was not the first time recalcitrant 
clergymen had been brought before him on far lesser 
charges. Garden's tone is sufficiently exemplified in 
the following quotation : 

" As to the State of Religion in this Province, it 
is bad enough, God knows. Rome and the Devil 
have contrived to crucify her 'twixt two Thieves, In- 
fidelity and Enthusiasm. The former, alas ! too much 
still prevails; but as to the latter, thanks to God, it 
is greatly subsided, & even on the Point of vanishing 
away. We had here Trances, Visions, & Revelations,, 
both 'mong Blacks & Whites, in abundance. . . . 
Bad also is the present State of the Poor Orphan 

* The Methodist movement in the South may here be traced, 
since the Rev. John and Charles Wesley, together with White- 
field, settled in Georgia, Savannah being, as the historian Stevens 
says, " one of the birthplaces of Methodism." He sailed for 
Georgia on December 28, 1737, with his friend, James Haber- 
sham, the latter name preserved in the Lanier family. The 
Orphan House is described, with illustration, in Stevens' " His- 
tory of Georgia " (vol. i, p. 309 seq., ed., 1847) ; see Whitefield's 
** Journals and Letters," also Philip's "Life and Times of the 
Reverend George Whitefield." 



ly 



84 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

House in Georgia ; that Land of Lies, & from w""^ we 
have no Truth, but what they can neither disguise 
nor conceal. The whole Colony is accounted here one 
great L — e from the beginning to this Day; & the 
Orphan House, you know, is a Part of the whole — 
A scandalous Bubble ! " 

This local sense of criticism is more pointed and 
more splenetically seen in the case of Patrick Tail- 
fer and his associates, who set up a strong opposition 
to the mandates of Oglethorpe, and who poured upon 
the latter the sarcasm of a bitter pen. The indelible 
impress of a man of violent temper has stamped the 
private character of Tailfer; he was once convicted 
of murdering a servant, the coroner proving his case, 
but the law was not rigorous, and so he escaped. In 
all matters pertaining to civic life he was a disturb- 
ing element, acting at times independently of authority. 
On such an initiative, he brought upon him the oppo- 
sition of Oglethorpe. For when Tailfer, during 1739, 
raised a company of militia apart from the colonial 
forces, yet thereafter demanded that he and his men 
be recognized officially, the authorities failed, in fact 
refused, to do so. 

General Oglethorpe's refusal to meet this demand 
led to Tailfer's departure from Savannah for Charles- 
ton, where he became associated with Anderson and 
Douglas, — all three Scotchmen, — and likewise be- 
came involved in the disputes which were soon man- 
ifest between Georgia and South Carolina. Such irrita- 
tion, due to the uneven bestowal of colonial authority, 
was just the opportunity Tailfer wanted, and if his 
biographer is correct — a biographer, it is to be noted, 
who relies on the journals of Stephens who was, 
together with Oglethorpe, the target for his shafts of 
dissatisfaction — he set himself pointedly "to cater to 
popular feeling." 

We thus have no agreeable figure to deal with in 

4^ 



COLONIAL PERIOD 85 

Patrick Tailfer, nor was he one to base his argu- 
ments or his spirit on any sound evidence ; rather was 
he one to resort to sarcasm as a means of misrepre- 
sentation. In fact, it has been truly written of his 
pubHshed account that " the veiled personalities which 
it tolerates, but evince the cowardice and the meanness 
of the detractor." His dedication was addressed to 
Oglethorpe, in itself a deeply thought-out scheme to 
make more poignant the force of his scarcely hidden 
innuendoes ; the tone is mean and the matter is hardly 
new, although its aggressiveness is interesting because 
of its combativeness ; it likewise is local, and territorial 
differences in the colonies were marked. The whole 
title runs : " A True and Historical Narrative of the 
Colony of Georgia in America, from the first Settle- 
ment thereof until this present period: containing the 
most authentic facts, matters and transactions there- 
in: together with his Majesty's charter, representa- 
tions of the people, letters, and a dedication to his ex- 
cellency General Oglethorpe. By Pat. Tailfer, M. D., 
Hugh Anderson, M. A., Da. Douglas, and others. 
Landowners in Georgia, at present in Charleston, 
South Carolina." 

The treatise is conceived from the angle of vision 
that reveals the sore spots in the colonial development 
of Georgia; it is a view of conditions in a fair land 
that would be fair indeed, were there, at the head, 
men who could grapple with things, men who, 
unlike Oglethorpe, were not satisfied with their own 
mismanagement. The contention was chiefly that the 
General was denying his colony those liberties which 
bring with them rapid and healthy growth. " You 
have afforded us the opportunity of arriving at the 
integrity of the primitive times, by entailing a more 
than primitive poverty on us." Such is a fair example 
of the recriminations and accusations. 

As his subject progresses, Tailfer confesses that 



^ 



86 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

indignation swells within him; Oglethorpe is not, to 
him, the strong man of the hour, but the weak man 
of the irrelevant hour, a politician who confuses the 
full significance of his prerogative. Tailfer is very- 
particular not openly to be brazen, but his attitude is 
that of the apologist on the floor of Parliament or 
the Senate; he is bitter, vindictive, and only for that 
reason is he particularly interesting. The literary 
student of Tailfer must satisfy himself with the tone 
of the written work generally ; not establish the meas- 
ure of his correctness from the historical view-point. 
As a pure miatter of local color, it interests him to 
measure by the historical fact, how much cause there 
was for indignation. When a man persistently at- 
tacks the illegal methods of the magistrates, when he 
is confident of the betterment of the colony after the 
people are allowed their rightful privileges, it is hard 
for the historian to ignore the popular feeling which 
underlies the motive, the initiative. 

Tailfer was an agitator in colonial letters; he was 
a muck-raker, if you will, but more in the spirit of 
pique than of whole-souled investigation. He was 
against Oglethorpe and showed no willingness to 
do aught but prove the situation "melancholy." 
Treaties were made only with worthless Indians ; while 
the restrictions on negro labor, the prohibition of rum, 
the unwise division of land — all these only increased 
colonial limitations. 

Literarily, the Colonial Period produced nothing 
large in the South; it did not even establish the liter- 
ary tone which might have marked the Southern 
spirit, as Puritanism undoubtedly marked New Eng- 
land and gripped it in fact till after the Civil War. 
In the North, the pulpit produced a mass of material, 
practical in part, but chiefly directed toward the spir- 
itual welfare. The Southern writers were largely land 
exploiters, whose aim was somewhat akin to that 



COLONIAL PERIOD 87 

adopted by commercial organizations eager to open "" 
up and develop an unfrequented region. The genera- 
tions of writers we have thus far dealt with, were in 
no intensive way attached to the soil; their minds 
were not molded under the influence of new en- 
vironment. As Englishmen they came to see, and as 
Englishmen they wrote. 

But no man can resist judging of acts, of events, 
by their effect upon a narrowed territory; slowly 
there crept into the make-up of the colonial English- 
man, the attitude of the community man who would / 
govern at home rather than be governed from a dis- ^ 
tance. This note comes in flashes in the so-called liter- 
ature of the period ; so does the spirit of resistance. /'-" 
The type of Southern writing, the type of Southern 
man, had not as yet become clearly defined. But not- 
withstanding, the Southern conditions were growing 
more marked, socially, sociologically, and economic- 
ally, as we have seen in our preliminary survey of 
early social forces. 



II 

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



♦TABLE OF AUTHORS 



Orators, Statesmen, Biographers, Historians, Pamphleteers, 
Poets 



1724-1761 
1724-1792 
1732- 1794 
1732-1799 
1736- 1799 
1740-1792 
1742-1779 
1743- 1826 
1749-1815 
1751-1836 
1755-1835 
1756-1818 
1758- 1824 
1760-1825 
1766- 1827 
1772-1834 
1773- 1833 
1787-1837 

1747-1825 
1748-1816 
1752-1828 

1793 
1775-1825 
1787- 1825 



Rev. Samuel Davies 
. Henry Laurens . 
Richard Henry Lee 
George Washington 
. Patrick Henry . 
Arthur Lee 
William Henry Drayton 

Thomas Jefferson 
. David Ramsay 
. James Madison . 
. John Marshall . 
. . Henry Lee . . 

Charles Pinckney 
Parson Mason Weems 
John Drayton. (S.) 
. William Wirt . 
. John Randolph . 
. . Henry Lee . . 

t poetry 

. James McClurg . 

Hugh Henry Brackenridge 

St. George Tucker 
. J. W. Hewlings 

William Munford 
, Richard Dabney 



. . Virginia 

South Carolina 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 

South Carolina 
. . Virginia 

South Carolina 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 

South Carolina . 
. . Virginia 

South Carolina 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 
. . Virginia 



. Virginia 

. Maryland 
. Virginia 
. Virginia 
. Virginia 
. Virginia 

* Incidental mention is made of John Rutledge, Edmund Ran- 
dolph, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, Christopher Gadsden, . 
George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, Benjamin 
Harrison, William Pinkney, Theodore Bland (1732-1792). Other 
names that should be considered are Joseph Galloway, Joachin 
Zubly, Jonathan Boucher, Daniel Dulany; in connection with 
this section, vide John Dickinson. 

t Note other minor poets, such as Giles Julap, Mrs, Ritson, 
Paul Henkel, Judith Lomax, Daniel Bryan, Dr. John Wharton, 
Col. Robert Munford, Redrap Howell. 



CHAPTER IV 

SOCIAL FORCES 

Life in the South ; a Consideration of the 
Plantation; a Picture of the Landed Pro- 
prietor AND THE State of His Culture. 

The civilization of the South is stamped indehbly 
upon the character of the Southern people. However 
in the future it may be changed by the substitution 
of newer forces, which point to broader economic 
and social conditions, that civiHzation will always be 
a fact which it were useless to ignore. The people 
are as distinctive as the soil which first made them an 
agricultural section ; their individual isolation was 
encouraged by the isolation of the landed estates, of 
the large plantations; their social bearing which 
measured the bearing of the English gentry 
was not a severance, but a continuation of Eng- 
lish tradition; their church, their justice, their laws 
of inheritance — the right of primogeniture — their 
manners, their habits of mind were simply trans- 
planted. The Southern plantation, it would not be 
too much to claim, was a suburb of the city of Lon- 
don, with the Atlantic as a tedious thoroughfare con- 
necting the wharves of Liverpool or London with the 
wharves along the Chesapeake — a suburb without the 
activity which is induced by proximity. 

The examination of original documents and state 
papers will indicate to a full degree the slow growth of 
the Englishman's estimate of liberty into the Ameri- 
can's idea of independence. Virginia alone, long be- 

91 



92 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

fore ever Patrick Henry's voice was heard, had zeal- 
ous regard for the rights of the subject throughout 
her colonial history. The literature of the settlers is 
marked by two attitudes : that of the observer, noting 
the advantages and disadvantages, the familiar and 
unfamiliar marks of mere external environment, and 
that of the settler, commenting upon himself in relation 
with the soil, and planning a policy for the betterment 
of his status as a permanent resident away from home. 
The Revolution, among its many beneficent effects, 
had two prime results: it turned America from colo- 
nial dependencies into the potential nation; it awak- 
ened England to the necessity for a democratization of 
her colonial system whereby Australia is now in 
possession of Home Rule. It likewise made a corre- 
sponding impress upon the minds of the people, and 
produced a literature of restiveness, of exhortation, of 
passionate expression called forth by the fire of the 
moment. It was a war literature, wherein the art was 
secondary to the human force that prompted it. The 
orator is the transitory, meteoric genius of the South ; 
his written word, full of dignity and force — whether 
of soundness or of narrow vision, whether prophetic 
or false — afterwards lost the quickening fire of de- 
livery, of personal contact. A large body of this 
literature, therefore, rich in value for the historian, 
may be summed up generally for its artistic worth. 

By the time of the Revolution, the South was well 
defined in its civilization, although cotton had not yet 
claimed the land, or raised the economic value of the 
slave. We shall see what concentrating effect the po- 
litical cast of Southern economic history had upon 
the mind of the orator, after the Lower South began 
to be defined, and after the admission of states threat- 
ened to upset the equilibrium of congressional repre- 
sentation. But the distinction of class, the home life, 
the isolated instances of brilliant city life, centered 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 93 

around, and in accordance with the customary bril- 
liancy of the royal governor, the intellectual limita- 
tions, the educational difficulties, are all to be found 
recorded in the literary attempts of the day. 

The life in the South, no matter from what point 
of view we approach it, was homogeneous in all, save 
population ; the history of a church, of a family, of a 
plantation, of a parish, of a county, exhibits the self- 
same features that on one hand gave it richness and 
on the other proclaimed its weakness. The atmosphere 
of such a life pervades every institution fostered by 
Southern conditions ; Thomas Nelson Page insists upon 
much of the charm of this past in his novels, stories 
and papers, but the weakness of his stories represents 
the weakness of that life he depicts, the lack of con- 
trasts, the sentiment that thrives on languor where 
the mind is classic rather than progressive. We could 
approach that colonial life as he does in his volume, 
" The Old South," by gathering all the antique refer- 
ences and fusing them together with a sufficient stream 
of historical facts. Such travelers as he quotes from 
freely, — the Reverend Andrew Burnaby and M. Le 
Chevalier de Chastellux, for example — call attention 
to those features known to all of us under the inclusive 
expressions of Southern manners, Southern hospitality, 
Southern charm. It is easy to state in set terms the 
pride of the first families of Virginia, their graces, 
extravagances, and excesses, but these are only units 
of a larger whole which, to be grasped, must be 
viewed from within the life itself. 

Speaking of " Two Old Colonial Places," Mr. Page 
mentions the receptions held in the home of the Nel- 
sons " at which have gathered Grymeses, Digges, Cus- 
tises, Carys, Blands, Lees, Carters, Randolphs, Bur- 
wdh, Pages, Byrds, Spotswoods, Harrisons and all 
the gay gentry of the Old Dominion." This tendency 
to treasure with a big and generous heart the contact 



94 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of family with family, of name with locality, has per- 
sisted from earliest times ; it is distinctive of the gentry 
feeling, detected not only in the social life, but in the 
direct activity of the church. And it was not without 
some cause that the Southern gentleman treasured the 
traditions of his household ; any of the Virginia names 
we take with an idea of tracing the lineal descent, of 
recording the intellectual activity, will present a mas- 
sive canvas of political learning and aristocratic in- 
dividualism. The social life offered every opportun- 
ity to become despotic rather than paternalistic. The 
Southern statesman of Revolutionary days framed his 
ideas within the shadow of Roman law and classic 
tradition. Nearly every name meant service of su- 
perior merit in the interests of the commonwealth; 
there were generous impulses, keen analytical judg- 
ment, obstinacy based on earnest persuasion — above 
all, force of character, and determinate characteristics 
which in themselves would have won the right to com- 
mand even if the social regime had not made the 
leadership inevitable. One has to read only in a 
casual manner to wonder at the rich constructive mind 
that emanated from Virginia, the solid figures of 
leaders, who, as the pastor of Bruton Church pointed 
out, sat within range of the Governor's pew, indeed 
served as vestrymen. These men who represented 
the life of the South were to become endorsers of 
declarations and adopters of constitutions, national 
and state. 

It would not be very sweeping to assert that the 
South, until the period of Reconstruction, was deter- 
mined by tobacco, cotton, and slavery; this means that 
one needs must reckon with the physical advantages 
which hastened these forces in their several directions. 
Virginia dominated over North Carolina because, 
geographically, she was so situated with her navigable 
streams as to reap the natural benefits. It was in 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 95 

Virginia that the poHtical cast of the Southern people 
was determined, adhering at first to that local self-gov- 
ernment which was to a considerable extent inter- 
woven with the official aspect of the church. The 
parish had a territorial distinction as well as a spiritual 
one, clearly distinguished in the case of the warden's 
duties during the colonial days in Virginia. For Dr. 
Channing has shown that the parish with vestry and 
wardens was the commencement of government in the 
tidewater district. As we have already suggested at 
some length in our discussion of the land system, in 
which are to be traced the seeds of Civil War, " the 
great result of colonial evolution," to use the words of 
Dr. Ballagh, " was economic sectionahsm " which 
determined the later political inclination of the people. 

The fundamental ideas of the law among the early 
statesmen were based on English precedence. The 
political privilege was valued according to the neces- 
sity for holding that privilege to insure the protection 
of landed interests. In this distinction lay the rever- 
sal of types. The constructive statesman, with his 
philosophical ideas concerning the rights of the in- 
dividual state, in a confederation of states, was turned 
into a destructive statesman whose policy was deter- 
mined by immediate protection of the economic life 
founded on a weakness which, in his heart of hearts, 
the Southerner knew was a hindrance to any commer- 
cial enterprise. 

The land system determined the produce and the 
labor; the caste system, marked the grades of social 
life. The lack of any commercial activity resulted in 
a consequent lack of the trading class, and of the 
centers which in New York and Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania encouraged the intellectual and scien- 
tific interests. Whatever connection there was be- 
tween the Virginia planter and his London merchant 
resulted in extravagance, waste^ and material loss to 



96 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the plantation ; for the transporting was expensive and 
precarious, the tobacco fluctuating in value, the plant- 
ers' accounts never balanced and most generally over- 
ran. In 1695, one planter wrote to his factor: "I 
desire you Sr. to send my Account Currant by the first 
ships and send me two or three duplicates for fear of 
miscarriage, for not knowing how my Account stands, 
I dare not send for goods though my wants are very 
great and pressing." This credit system hung over 
the Southern plantation for many years ; it fostered in 
the minds of an aristocratic society a contempt for 
trade which found an outlet in a contempt for the New 
England trader. They did not realize, in their aloof 
stronghold, that such pride in the individual was con- 
sequent upon the rural community in which he lived. 
Try as he might to frame laws whereby towns could 
be created, he did not at first see that town life meant 
a compact civilization which his was not, and could 
not be while he persisted in his economic methods. 

For an instant, let us imagine the life in the South 
at the time of the Revolution. The planter, with his 
inherited position of country squire, in whom was 
vested some of the jurisdiction of the land — a pictur- 
esque figure at the county court-house — was possessor 
of large tracts of land, and was dependent upon slaves. 
The black man, in his capacity as worker, was appor- 
tioned in two classes, the field " hand " being under 
the direct supervision of the overseer, the domestic 
servant attending to the personal wants of the house- 
hold. Whatever the evils of slavery, its restrictive 
influence over the negro did much to make it possible 
on the one hand for him to become attached to the soil, 
and on the other hand for him to improve in his 
general welfare. 

The system of paternalism had its immediate effect 
on the domestic servant. The early Southern novelists 
descant upon the " gray-haired coachman," the old 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 97 

major-domo, or "body servant," and the corpulent 
black mammy in the same vein of endearment; they 
are depicted as types of a life rather than as human be- 
ings; they are artificially described. Indeed, it is as- 
tonishing to note how recent has been the ability of the 
Southern writer to grasp the real characteristics of 
the negro, giving him human qualities rather than 
mere distinctive characteristics. Mrs. Eliza Wilkinson 
in Revolutionary days, Poe in a later period, attempted 
negro dialect with humorous results. It was only 
after the Civil War that the darkey took his natural 
place in literature; till then his portrait was sure to 
be stagy, however sentimentally treated. 

It is true that the negro was thrust upon a civi- 
lization unconsciously ready to receive him. He did 
not become a fixture without elements of opposition 
interfering, and it is essential to note thus early the 
feeling of race integrity which demanded the ascend- 
ency of the whites. As the negroes increased in num- 
bers, the laws applying to them were more stringent ; 
protection became essential, for bondage was the only 
safety against the black man whose savage instincts 
were not yet curbed, who knew not the meaning of 
honor, of right, of justice, of the inviolable law of 
sex. In the preservation of race integrity, the bar- 
riers were so strong as to prevent any radical rectifica- 
tion of race deficiencies. The negro's word before 
the law, as evidence against the white man, was dis- 
counted; his own trials were often done in haste and 
at a time when he could best be spared from the fields ; 
his marriages, in the colony of North Carolina for 
example, were consummated with little ceremony, 
oftentimes without a priest ; and, in rare instances, the 
sacredness of the bond was ignored by the master, in 
his desire to raise the child-birth on his plantation and 
to increase his slave stock. 

The negro practically filled the needs of the labor 



98 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

problem; the Indians were a source of menace to the 
colonists, not a channel of help ; the indentured white 
servants filled only the letter of their papers, escaping 
the yoke as soon as possible. Slavery was the one 
prime source of labor for the planter, and the slave's 
bondage was made more secure, notwithstanding the 
religious sects that believed in his freedom. The time 
was not far distant when the pulpit would proclaim, 
in the face of the negro's legal disqualifications, the 
Bible basis for his social rank. 

There were three other classes below the planter, 
which economically looked to the large plantation. The 
poor white with his truck patch, through the necessities 
of his living and the barrenness of his association as 
well as through his removal from any contact with the 
opulence and refinement of the aristocracy, was dis- 
tinguished by a rough, uncouth exterior which even 
affected the manner of his speech. This may have 
been due in part to the character of the emigrant class 
pushed from the fertile land of the tidewater districts. 

The life presented great contrasts of class ; in that 
respect, the population was neither compact nor homo- 
geneous, but on the other hand it was picturesque to a 
high degree. Wherever a throng gathered, it was a 
motley crowd, presenting no middle point of contact, 
no average community of interest. The aristocrat, 
even in his excesses, remained still the aristocrat. A 
biographer of John Randolph, exhibiting the narrow 
prejudices of his education, in speaking of his sub- 
ject's hard drinking, found a saving grace in the fact 
that Randolph " scarcely ever drank with the illiterate 
or vulgar at all," adding, in a tone that impressed one 
with the doubtful instincts of the gentleman, that 
this reticence was observed " even during the highest 
electioneering times." 

The old-fashioned novelist has " fixed " the atmos- 
phere of that period; if it be a church scene, one 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 99 

knows that the squire will doze under the influence 
of the parson's brawl ; that in all places of hi!2:h stand- 
ing*, whether in court, at the governor's ball, at the 
tavern, in his house, where, using the stereotyped 
phrase, " the table groaned," he was the dominant 
figure by right of his family connections as well as 
of his holdings. Cooke, in describing him, speaks of 
" the generous, dogmatic, prejudiced, courteous, im- 
posing old worthy " whose " opinions upon political, 
religious, and social subjects have long since been 
made up." Around such a figure, the whole signifi- 
cance of plantation life whirled; upon him rested the 
care of dependent people, from the slaves of his fields 
to worthless relatives who, in their indolence, were 
unfailingly ready to impose upon his proverbial hos- 
pitality through an appeal to his family pride. 

Such a life was doomed to create a certain placid, 
somnolent, intellectual satisfaction; it was an estab- 
lished life, impervious to innovations. The parson, with 
his fixed ritual, railed against the dissenting voices 
of Wesley, Fletcher, and Whitefield; these sects that 
sprung up outside the barrier of episcopacy, sounded 
bold and daring. In the person, for example, of the 
Rev. Samuel Davies (1724-1761), the intensity of the 
dissenting voice became a symbol of the danger which 
threatened the majority, in the presence of " the new 
light." Indeed, it was such a character as this parson 
which was instrumental in pressing the Toleration 
Act. The occasion of preaching was a terrible respon- 
sibility in the hands of Davies; he was an orator, a 
master of speech with full knowledge of law, civic 
and ecclesiastical. He possessed the intrepidity of a 
James Blair, with none of the special limitations of 
the Established Church; his intellect was restive and 
fearless ; he stood in awe of God only, refusing " to 
talk nonsense in the name of the Lord," rebuking 
George II. openly to that monarch's face, preaching 



loo THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

religion and patriotism to the soldiers. He was a 
keen estim.ator of ability, and perhaps was one of the 
first to forecast the greatness of Washington. 

Church service in colonial days was a point of con- 
tact for the people of isolated homes. Sundays and 
court days brought them together. John Davis, 
traveling through the country around 1798- 1802, 
wrote: "A Virginian churchyard on a Sunday 
resembles rather a race ground than a sepulchral 
ground; the ladies come to it in carriages, and the 
men, after dismounting from their horses, make them 
fast to the trees. But the steeples to the Virginian 
churches were designed, not for utility but ornament ; 
for the bell is always suspended to a tree a few yards 
from the church." 

The social life of the plantation was not meager; 
the talk ranged from Addison to thoroughbreds and 
fox hunting; with the old English idea, the holiday 
seasons were festive occasions for lavish hospitality, 
in which all the servants shared, for the child of 
the white man played freely with the darkey, practic- 
ing upon him, without demur from him, certain minia- 
ture authority which was based on imitation of a 
deeper thing. The squire's coach rolled from estate 
to estate, usually flanked by some gallant attendant 
upon some belle of the Dominion, whose heart was as 
vivacious as the slipper that gaily tripped the reel. 

But as regards society at the capital, so fairly esti- 
mated in Cooke's "Virginia Comedians," there must 
have been considerable incongruity between the imi- 
tation of court splendors, represented in the noble 
ambitions of the King's representative, the royal gov- 
ernor — and the ordinary dwellings which graced the 
main streets of Williamsburg. The South was rural, 
but to the capital there flocked the wealthy families 
in accordance with the most approved entrance into 
J^ondon. Yet^ according to authorities^ the dwellings 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD loi 

were ordinary and not commensurate in splendor with 
the dressing of the ladies and gentlemen. To some 
extent, the general spirit of existence was romantic, 
for around these little centers there still reigned the 
mystery of the unknown forest. It was possible, un- 
der such conditions, for Spotswood, in 1716, to enter 
the valley of the Shenandoah, after the manner of a 
new King Arthur, and establish among his horsemen 
an order of the Golden Horseshoe. Here, in this little 
town of Williamsburg, concentrated the culture of Vir- 
ginian life — the college, the theater, the governor's 
palace, all after the manner of a transplanted civiliza- 
tion. They read Wycherley and Congreve in those 
days, they upheld the eminence of Addison, Pope and 
Dryden. The play induced the youthful dandy to flirt 
with and ogle the players, himself seated, as at home, 
upon the elementary stage. The Virginian was a gay 
theatergoer in Williamsburg; the students of William 
and Mary College presented pastorals, and gave com- 
mendably a performance of " Cato," even reciting on 
occasions in the presence of the Governor. Crusty Sir 
William Berkeley turned playwright himself in the 
seventeenth century, long before the first professional 
players made their appearance in the colonies. Wash- 
ington kept up the traditions of his ancestors in his 
liking for the theater. 

One might pass over the educational system with 
a slight reference to its English bearing on one hand, 
and to its aristocratic appeal on the other. But its 
early evidences are interwoven with the social, 
economic, and spiritual aspects of the life. While it is 
true, as far as statistical and fact accuracy are con- 
cerned, that the South has always been heedlessly mis- 
represented, the mere fact of the numbers of schools, 
libraries, and newspapers in the South is no great evi- 
dence that they in any way measured the true culture 
of the period. South Carolina had a free school as 



102 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

early as 1710; bequests were being made in 1721 for 
educational purposes; in 1733 the parish was main- 
taining its school-house, and legislative acts were at- 
tempting to encourage the spread of schools in 
isolated districts. But despite the schools and 
academies, in the face of private instruction either 
from the parson who most generally became attached 
to the household, or from the pedagogue, the edu- 
cation found in early Charleston was of foreign cast; 
such men as Pinckney, Drayton, and Gadsden, who 
dominate the pages of Revolutionary history in South 
CaroHna, went abroad to be educated. The Virginians 
even found it advisable to desert William and Mary 
College and go to Princeton into a brisker atmosphere, 
almost invariably returning to see whether they could 
not have their legal training under the profound guid- 
ance of Chancellor George Wythe, who trained Mar- 
shall, who had Clay as his helper, who, according to 
Wirt, could bestow upon one " the crown of legal 
preparation." This was a time when America's great 
men, largely Virginians, were in the bud. 

But, in truth, a decided advantage is to be had in 
laying stress upon certain cultural features which in- 
dicate clearly that the colonial Southerner or the pre- 
revolutionary Southerner was not wanting in a liter- 
ary taste or in an art instinct. There was a pro- 
nounced atmosphere of mental refinement in the city 
of Charleston where, as an English traveler of the 
time recorded, the genteeler sort of people are pretty 
well bred, especially the men, for this same agreeable 
flatterer of his feminine readers in England adds: 
"The ladies in general (very few excepted) are not 
tolerably handsome, for most of them have Pale, Sick- 
ish, Languid Complections, and are commonly ill- 
shaped, their shoulders seeming to have a longing de- 
sire to rise high enough to hide their ears, and in their 
Conversation they have a disagreeable drawling way 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 103 

of speaking-, which is no Advantage to help make up 
for their Persons." In such manner was the Southern 
accent, distinctive of the CaroHnas, summarily rejected. 
One detects in such irritability the attitude of an Eng-- 
lish traveler who fully realized the spirit of determined 
opposition which actuated the war. 

Hugh S. Legare makes a statement in his " Essay 
on Classical Learning," which, put by the side of the 
early system of education as pursued in William and 
Mary College, points to the necessity of a sound educa- 
tion being sought for outside of the rural communi- 
ties; he claimed that, due to English schooling, 
Charleston excelled in its polite literature and its 
standards of taste ; the religion of the Church of Eng- 
land, Latin and Greek constituted the backbone of 
local instruction; this was practically all the colonial 
schoolmaster had at his command. In 1712, some 
seven years after the employment of the first teacher 
in North Carolina, a school was established, in which 
the children soon showed they could read and write 
and speak intelligently upon the principles of Christian 
doctrine. But, try as they would, the schools in the 
Southern states could not compass the requirements 
of a general education, in addition to which, the aris- 
tocratic barrier was so raised, the economic discrimina- 
tion was so apparent, as to prevent, save in exceptional 
cases, any but the wealthier classes from preparing 
for the higher walks of life. As compared with the 
North, the South in number of schools, in the distri- 
bution of newspapers, in the establishment of libraries, 
was not so wanting as the historian would make be- 
lieve. 

But where one labors under the disadvantages 
of such a social system as that out of which the South 
of ante-bellum days was evolved, one is liable to find 
even the newspapers cutting aloof from the world at 
large, and local in interest unless sectional in demand. 



I04 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

The editor of the next era was more anxious to sup- 
port his opinion than to bring- to his readers news re- 
garding the activity of the outside world. The orator 
therefore, despite the presence of the newspaper, was 
the real disseminator of opinion. A study of educa- 
tional beginnings involves a consideration again of the 
migration of religious sects in the South, for the 
Church, both established and dissenting, supported 
school-houses, and the Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel was instrumental in starting the library 
system in North Carolina. As early as 1676, the 
evidence of wills attests the existence of valuable books 
among the colonists, one of which could boast the 
possession of a Geneva Bible. In Charleston, the in- 
habitants were forming clubs for the exchange of 
literature received from home. The founder of the 
Society just mentioned established thirty-nine libraries, 
a veritable colonial Carnegie, with a parochial in- 
fluence in mind. The religious missionaries did much 
in this way to disseminate a desire to read; they 
were constantly applying for new books to be sent 
them, and by their example others followed in their 
wake. 

Even as Byrd at Westover gathered together 
volumes which measured the extent of his contact with 
the world of belles lettres, so a companion of his in the 
North Carolina Boundary dispute, one Mr. Moseley, 
who did m\uch to advance education and religion, 
gathered together a rich collection which he be- 
queathed for public benefit. Other libraries were be- 
gun as early as 1673 in North Carolina, the list of 
books clearly indicating the gentry taste, and a 
familiarity with English literature which showed men- 
more closely in touch with book culture, as Mr. 
Weeks so aptly states, than the average politician of 
to-day, with all his educational and social opportuni- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 105 

ties. The Southern colonist when he read, and I cite 
the example of James Iredell as instance, took up his 
" Tristram Shandy,'' his " Clarissa Harlowe," his 
Fielding, as though he were still near London, and he 
had his preferences, his literary prejudices, feasting 
upon " The Rambler," " The Tatler," Rowe, Montes- 
quieu, and Rousseau, as well as quoting Pope and 
Cowper. He was a devotee of essays, history and 
politics; he had pronounced opinions on the classics 
and Massinger, Otway, and the Restoration litera- 
ture. When the Strolling Players in 1768 entered 
North Carolina, " The Spanish Friar " was found by 
one colonial dame at least to be too strong for her 
feminine taste. 

Not only was the settler among the wealthy classes 
far from ignorant, his mental scope being solid, but in- 
vestigation has brought to light the character of the 
portraits that hung upon his walls. Canvases by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, Copley, and Stuart 
were in possession of many a Carolina family. Thus, 
imagination has much to work upon in picturing the 
state of the landed proprietor's culture. Yet not- 
withstanding the fair comparison of the South with 
New England in this matter of the establishment of 
the vehicles of education, there was a lack of vital 
impetus throughout the vast territory that lay be- 
tween such rare centers as Charleston and Wil- 
liamsburg. The mental capacity of the Southerner 
was concerned with something far different from 
imaginative graces; in fact, the literature of the pre- 
Revolutionary period throughout the country partook 
of the same character. In New England, as in Vir- 
ginia and Carolina, the same species of writing was 
done. The genius of the time was not the poet, al- 
though poetry was published, not the novelist, not the 
traveler, but the orator, awakened to a new destinv. 



io6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

The literature was born of the times, and in the 
South it went beyond the Hmitations of its environ- 
ment, for as yet there was naught outside to jeopardize 
the civiHzation within, to impose upon whatever 
literary expression might exist, the necessity of pro- 
tecting the local institutions peculiar to its soil. 



CHAPTER V 

THE CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 

From Washington and Jefferson to Marshall 



The Revolutionary writer was an orator and a 
statesman, an orator in that through his appeal and 
remonstration he developed in men's minds the neces- 
sity for political separation from England, a states- 
man for the reason that he foresaw the necessity for 
a close affiliation of states which at first resulted in 
Confederation and afterwards in Union. If, during 
the crucial period, there was any opposition to the 
idea of a closer bond between the separate communi- 
ties, it came from New England rather than from the 
South. 

The literature of the Revolution assumed many 
forms, all actuated by the same spirit of protest, op- 
position, and appeal. Man's energy was directed 
toward preserving the rights of Englishmen, be- 
queathed him by the Magna Charta. In extenuation 
of Jefferson as a conservative statesman, in defense 
of his Declaration which has so often been discounted 
because of its generalizations and its suggested French 
idealism, Fiske emphasizes an evident distinction be- 
tween the Rousseau doctrine of the natural rights of 
man, and the political rights of yeomen and gentry, 
as yet more British than American. Whatever prec- 
edent was cited by the colonist found root in the 
mother country. 

107 



io8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

The body of our political writing, therefore, divides 
itself into two main classes: separation and union. 
If, as Dr. Sears seems to think, " the resources of argu- 
ment, persuasion, and appeal in political and state 
papers, had been well nigh exhausted " by the time of 
actual resort to arms, an epoch of interpretation, of 
construction, was soon to follow. In vain might one 
desire some political adjustment which would over- 
come the estrangement, but a community sense had 
been developed in the struggle which no arbitration 
could satisfy. It was the very necessity for an in- 
digenous body of precedents that added to the great- 
ness of Marshall, and enlisted his very keenest legal 
analysis. But it is significant that even thus early 
there was a type of old lawyer in Virginia, who looked 
somewhat askance at the headstrong actions of a 
Patrick Henry, such men as Wythe, Pendleton and 
Peyton Randolph. An estimator of the character of 
the statesman of this epoch will perhaps, in his analy- 
sis, account for deviations from the individual types 
with the change in political conditions and problems. 
No doubt the rise of the Lower South did much to 
effect this change, but there is small room for specula- 
tion that, traditionally, Calhoun, Stephens, Toombs, 
and Yan-cey founded their positions, however widely 
removed, upon this more philosophical statesmanship. 
How, in the midst of an ultra-aristocratic community, 
such broad attitudes should be foremost, where the 
planter possessed what Professor Trent terms the 
agricultural and bourgeois cast of mind, is probabl}^ 
due to the fact that in the cases of Washington, Jeffer- 
son, and Henry, they were slightly removed westward 
from the extreme tidewater region, and exercised a 
freer mind by very right of their pioneer positions. 

Most of the writings of these men belong to his- 
tory, not to literature ; they are essentially products of 
active men who, under pressure of state affairs, wrote 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 109 

as they thought, with little time for grace, but speak- 
ing with force and authority. These men wrote of 
things occurring, hardly of things in the past; their 
perspective, therefore, is all the more wonderful, giv- 
ing to their imagination, which in this respect is closely 
allied with the historic sense, a large value. In fact, 
such a mind is to be estimated not as part of literary 
record, except in so far as enriching the mental char- 
acter of the man, and as modifying his taste. 

The Revolutionary statesman in most cases left a 
large body of letters, state papers, and orations; in 
them one is able to detect the myriad facets of his per- 
sonality. As a man, he is to be taken in relation with 
his staid training, his culture, and his private life; as 
a public servant, he is to be judged by his attitude, his 
acts, and thus the author becomes simply a means 
toward an end of adequate expression. Of all the 
so-called statesmen, Jefferson is the one who may be 
said to have striven for literary renown; this was in 
part due to the fact that nature had not fitted him 
for an orator, and so his pen pursued its facile way, 
given to extravagancies of expression. It is the per- 
sonal note that lends charm to the letters and docu- 
ments preserved, wherein is unfolded the fullness of 
men coming in touch with young life, and having a 
new world to move in. They were all human, with 
a deep love of the domestic, which phase always brings 
forward dominant features in the estimate of the men 
themselves — the religious intensity of Henry, the 
practical surety and providence of Washington, the 
natural love of Jefferson, even the paternalistic 
courtesy of the impetuous Randolph. 

These men were trained on a solid basis ; they dealt 
with present things; they ordained for the future. 
Having dragged the colonial neck from a parlia- 
mentary noose, each commonwealth, independent, 
though weak in numbers, and though sympathetic. 



no THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

in proximity and in similar political imminency with 
its neighbor, was not in a mood to foster another gov- 
ernment whose strength would overshadow the rights 
of an individual state, which it soon declared itself to 
be. The statesmen, therefore, developed in an at- 
mosphere of intense conviction, based on small if any 
precedence. The rural life of the separate counties 
added to their leadership and recognized the strength 
of the strong men. When these figures, solid in 
proportion, and rich in the color of their portraiture, 
were not guiding events, they were estimating the 
men who were their associates, and the biographies 
which they wrote, valuable because of first-hand im- 
pressions and of sympathy with environment and sub- 
ject, ring with conviction, and in the instance of 
Marshall's " Life of Washington," become, uncon- 
sciously, political autobiographies of themselves. 

The recalcitrant mood, the persuasive intensity, left 
little room for the sesthetic impulse; the cast of mind 
was judicial, the education began with the classics 
and ended with the law. In the case of Henry, the in- 
tensifying of legal knowledge came after his general 
grasp of the subject — a grasp astounding for its variety 
rather than convincing because of its intensive solid- 
ity; in after years, his dramatic instinct, ripened by 
an absorptive method which put him mentally into pos- 
session of every essential of a needed subject. Men 
concentrated on law in those days; even in the social 
life they never escaped the atmosphere; the forensic 
contests had some element of the theatrical in them, 
force pitted against force, and attractive on both sides 
because vital to the people on both sides. 

The Southern statesmen were generally subjected 
to the same training; they were associates in conven- 
tions, and together they broke bonds, made laws, re- 
vised statutes, and then retired to their separate 
estates, drawing upon their memories for reminis- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD iii 

cences. The American historian has not yet escaped 
the small misstatement due to some superficial feeling, 
but which nevertheless tended to distort motive. 
This similar training serves to place the Revolutionary 
constructive statesmen on the same plane of general 
culture. Before any Constitution became the parent 
of Federalist and anti-Federalist parties, the an^le of 
primal vision alone was determining the difference 
between one orator and the other. Some were slow 
in their progress; others, like John Rutledge, were 
meteoric. They graduated from school into law of- 
fices, from there into the army, called afterwards to 
their state legislatures, and afterwards to be sent to 
the Continental Congress, and to the Convention for 
the Federal Constitution. They became Governors of 
their infant states, were re-elected, assumed the 
dignity of Chief Justices. To whatever post they were 
called, they overflowed the limits of the ofHce, and ac- 
complished distinctive work. 

There is a legitimate doubt in the minds of most 
critics as to how far this statesmanship may be called 
distinctively Southern, it was so general in its bearing. 
In the m.atter of religious freedom, of negro slavery, 
of constitution framing, they are to be accounted 
national. The wisdom of Washington which was the 
genius of Washington, born of the time rather than 
of the locality, at least ripened and mellowed under 
Southern conditions; the force of individualism fos- 
tered by a graded society developed the quickening 
elements of leadership. In Henry one detects certain 
opposition to a nationalistic move, which was precau- 
tion rather than prejudice, a sentiment which later 
brought about the amendments to the Constitution. 

However brilliant, however sound, oratory, liter- 
arily, was the drawback of the Southern author. 
Nearly all expression was measured in terms of elo- 
quence, and while the printed speeches afterwards 



112 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

bore evidence of conviction and reasoning, none of 
them should now be read without a running commen- 
tary from eye-witnesses as to the manner in which 
it was dehvered. The aesthetics all centered in 
the art of the orator, the bearing, gesture, tone. 
Henry's magnetism was tremendous; his pov/er of 
feeling the psychology of the crowd, of determining 
the greatest point of vantage, .of directing, and of then 
following the emotions in the court-room, constituted 
his dramatic excellence. The Virginians looked 
upon him as their Henry, even as the South Carolin- 
ians, according to Ramsay, showed pride in their John 
Rutledge. 

The mantle of oratory passed from shoulder to 
shoulder; the new generation boasted of having been 
near the older generation on the occasion of a last 
speech or law case. Thus John Randolph followed 
upon the footsteps of Henry, on that memorable oc- 
casion when a whole state streamed to hear the 
veteran, when even a college suspended work to at- 
tend the historical event. 

These men of the South were great pleaders; in 
that respect their art had much of the evanescence of 
the actor's art; but they sent ringing down the years 
phrases which represent not themselves so much as 
the people whose spirit they officially stood for, phrases 
which penetrated the core of the matter. Our schools 
have made these extracts trite because they have 
separated the wording from the vigor of the moment ; 
yet none the less was the first utterance fraught with 
the beauty of genius and the dignity of manhood. 
Their brilliancy made their profundity popular; their 
manner added a golden luster to their minds. Ed- 
mund Pendleton was famed for his mellifluous voice, 
while Henry, standing in the early morning on his 
grounds overlooking the Staunton River, used in 
moderate tones to give orders to his field hands half 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 113 

a mile away. George Wythe, as legal professor in 
William and Mary College, was known to cure many 
students of wild manner by the courtesy of his bow. 
Randolph was over-particular regarding the small de- 
tails of bearing, his sarcasm, his ungovernable rage, 
suddenly giving way to the most surprising deference. 

When these orators went to conventions, they did 
not go empty-handed or empty-minded; they did 
not wait for the chance moment. Charles Pinckney 
was sent from South Carolina to the Federal Conven- 
tion with a plan of government fully drafted in a 
speech. By the tenor of their argument, based largely 
on their philosophical distinctions as to the central- 
izing of power, they declared themselves either Vir- 
ginians or Americans; thus no one could confound 
Randolph's claims with those of Washington. In 
his " Party Leaders," a book deserving of wider rec- 
ognition to-day, J. G. Baldwin offers some suggestive 
reasoning as to the caliber of these orators, a " breed" 
he truly calls them, rare by virtue of the times and 
by value of the civilization. These men were indeed 
transfigured, and they were possessed of the golden 
oratory. 

When a man in other walks of life exhibited a 
rare gift of speech, his friends brought him forward 
as special pleader for their cause; even in the pulpit, 
matters spiritual gave way before issues of more 
burning moment. The force of Samuel Davies, while 
recognized, was considered as partially lost, for the 
people said, in the face of his intrepidity: "What a 
lawyer was spoiled when Davies took the pulpit." 
We are inclined, before the glamor of the aristocracy 
of birth, to lay no stress upon the enormous energy in 
these men, which helped to win them their positions; 
Edmund Pendleton, for example, is a striking instance 
of the self-made man, gifted by nature with a musical 
voice, a sweet disposition, and picturesque mien, 



114 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

whose progress is representative of truest democracy, 
from the plow to the highest offices of public trust. 
The classical training which Pendleton did not have, 
but which was possessed by most professional men of 
that day, was a grace, not a vital acquisition; the 
really important matter to Southerners was law; — it 
was then as Mr. Page says, " that the real power of 
their intellects was shown." Their greatest reading was 
in the path of Littleton and Coke and Blackstone. 
While St. George Tucker, step-father of Randolph, 
could turn such feeling verses as "Resignation," his 
pen was almost wholly employed in legal writing. His 
edition of Blackstone, his suggestions regarding the 
abolition of slavery in Virginia, his active work as 
judge and professor, these facts at once show his in- 
clination. The law is part of the intellectual make-up 
of the South; the individual lawyer may hardly be 
accounted a literary man. 

This professional aptitude, partly expected in a 
family, was perhaps inherited, but largely a matter of 
atmospheric contagion, of local tradition — the primo- 
geniture of law! The long line of Tuckers is an in- 
teresting example of successive generations and gath- 
ering tradition, varying, slightly in such contrasts as 
Beverley Tucker's " Partisan Leader " and a later St. 
George Tucker's " Hanford." Southern life admitted 
of small variation of professions. 

The literature distinctive of this period, critical in 
its revolutionary and evolutionary aspects, was a war 
literature chiefly. The writers were also soldiers; we 
obtain a near view of history, a personal narrative of 
men and events. It was a period of adjustment, where 
the Tory element had not been quite stamped out, 
where wavering minds had to be won over by plain 
facts, where enthusiastic colonists had to ponder the 
necessity of close connection. The heroes of the 
court-house were counterbalanced by the heroes of the 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 115 

field. At the beginning of the war, Massachusetts 
looked to Virginia for moral support and practical 
advice. Virginia's initiative strengthened the initia- 
tive of the Northern colony. Then Great Britain, 
disheartened over the lack of progress in the North, 
transferred operations to the South, and Bloody 
Tarleton, apart from the deeper historical significance 
of his position, served to put zest into the feminine 
writings of Mrs. Eliza Wilkinson. Marion and Sum- 
ter and Henry Lee became household names; Mor- 
gan's riflemen furnished material for romance. The 
actual fortunes of war affected Jefferson's popularity 
as Governor of Virginia. As first President of South 
Carolina, John Rutledge affords another instance of 
the spirit of American Independence, during the at- 
tack on Charleston. Lee suggested that Moultrie 
evacuate Sullivan's Island; the latter was relieved of 
all decision by the firm message of Rutledge : " You 
will not without an order from me. I would sooner 
cut off my hand than write one." This spirit, this 
terseness, is not typical of the South ; it is the natural 
speech of war. 

For many years to come. Southern literature was to 
hark back to this period of revolution. It was to con- 
sist of history, biography and romance; great names 
typified great events, and the idea became lost in an 
overgrowth of sentiment. The novels of the period 
before the Civil War were historical, always narrative, 
oftentimes partisan, but hardly endowed with any 
critical spirit. The Revolution handicapped litera- 
ture as the Civil War handicapped it. The Southern 
writer kept looking back. 

Yet the South was not far behind the North in the 
different phases of Revolutionary literature, as sug- 
gested by Professor Tyler. The tractarian movement 
was not so general, the newspaper not so accessible. 
But the poetry, except in the case of Freneau, the 



ii6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

drama, letters, political essays, diaries, and journals 
were just as distinctive, while in the matter of state 
papers and orations, the South was in the ascendent. 



II 

The men of this time were human; they had their 
prejudices, their jealousies, their differences, but 
their initial vision was clear and disinterested. In 
viewing Patrick Henry (1736-1799), the mantle 
of genius covers a homely figure which first presented 
itself to the people of Virginia — a personality which 
boldly declared itself against compromise, which held 
aloft the idea of independence, seeming thus to 
emanate from an unthinking, uncouth person, gifted 
only with a glow of words. But his phrases took on 
meaning, throbbed with a new significance. The un- 
gainly country fellow stood forth as an American, and 
usurped the foremost place held by such men as Pey- 
ton Randolph, Wythe, and Bland. These men of the 
older generation were cautious; they would much 
rather patch up the difficulties, a view held generally 
by a considerable number of the conservative colo- 
nists. But even Peyton Randolph, as representative of 
the King, began to understand what parliamentary 
encroachments would lead to in the end; Henry fear- 
lessly declared the outcome. Of all his acts, the Bill 
of Rights, written by him, is the one of which in after 
years he was most proud. Like all of his contem- 
poraries who became authors of state papers, the orig- 
inality of his document was disputed; a doubt was 
cast over what on the death of Henry was found to 
be authentic. Jefferson, likewise, was discredited with 
the ideas underlying the Declaration. Even to-day, 
critics claim that William Henry Drayton was the 
source of his inspiration. Thoughts were in the air; 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 117 

free discussion between men developed a species of 
community of opinion; intellects were placed upon 
the same anvil; the same force drew sparks from per- 
sonality. It was the final tone of the finished product 
which stamped the genius of the individual statesman. 
But Henry was slightly different from the Constitution 
makers when he opposed the Stamp Act openly, when 
he refused to accept any design for a readjustment 
of the colonies as colonies; his was an original atti- 
tude. 

Like most of the public men of the time, Henry 
was often doubted; petty jealousies misrepresented 
him, yet, like Washington, he was open and frank, 
outspoken in his desire to disarm suspicion. Jefferson 
did much in later years to lend a false color to Henry's 
intellect, to his manner of speech which, even though 
tinged with rude excrescences, only points to local 
associations, and not to illiteracy. Though some of 
his opposition to measures was based on a certain 
obstinacy in his character, Henry, nevertheless, was 
usually wise if not profound; he was essentially the 
representative of liberty, and as such, one may at 
least understand how he came to oppose the adop- 
tion of a new constitution. Intrepid over the gaining 
of freedom, he was cautious about relinquishing any 
hold on what was so dearly bought. As the historian 
avers, Henry was a good fighter, never a good hater; 
he believed in adjustment after the point he fought 
for had been gained. The successful issue of the 
Revolution found him supporting measures which 
might lead to some renewed relations with Great 
Britain. 

Henry had much against him in appearance ; it was 
his earnest manner, his magnetic speech, his generous 
attitude — even while arraying every means of opposi- 
tion against his adversary — that courted trust and won- 
der. His was not the art of composition ; the orators 



ii8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of those times gave forth the genius of first utterance; 
their style, indeed, was inherent in the utterance; the 
state paper contained the orator's foresight and im- 
pulse, modified by a sound knowledge of law. That 
is what surprised Chatham, when he faced the House 
of Lords and praised the written terms which repre- 
sented colonial measures. 

Henry and Washington both suffered from the 
machinations of hidden factions. Although in Vir- 
ginia the prime force, not only in the declaration of 
war measures but in seeing the measures through, 
centered in Henry, although the conservative 
elders concealed their personal animosity be- 
neath a feeling that the younger man was "pre- 
mature," Henry, nevertheless, became the leader. His 
was the positive assertion of war, nor was his speech 
tinged with any of the lost hope of peace. His tem- 
per, his sentiment, his experience — all conduced to 
make his arguments ring with the sincerity of convic- 
tion. He was not equivocal ; he called for war in the 
spirit of the old Hebrew leaders ; the minds before him 
constituted soil ready to receive him. He was not in- 
cendiary, the war spirit in him was prompted by the 
holiness of the cause; you could see it in his burning 
eye, in his features akindle with intense emotion, in 
the physical strain upon his body, in the sonorous 
music of the voice of the leader. His dramatic de- 
livery was in itself literature; words of those days, 
save for the general, fundamental ideas which they 
contain, have lost the shades of meaning which the 
living inflection bestowed ; an editor in the future must 
come to take our significant state papers and to pre- 
pare them dramatically for the press; the essence of 
the thought must not be isolated from the essence of 
the man in whom the thought originated. The 
genius of American democracy is symbolized by the 
modesty . of Henry. When Jefiferson rode to the 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 119 

Capitol on the morning of his inauguration, tying his 
own horse to the post, his modesty was partly usurped 
by his determined desire to do away with the so-called 
panoply of Federalism. But as Henry turned away 
after delivering his Virginia Resolutions, with the con- 
sciousness of having angered Randolph, yet with no 
conceit over being on a footing with his superiors by 
priority of time, with Pendleton, Wythe, and Bland, 
he represented the pioneer in thought as well as in 
costume. 

There are many who would credit Henry with no 
claims to learning, but facts will point to his early 
education in the fundamental branches, and in some 
special understanding of Latin, Greek, and mathe- 
matics ; he was not college bred, and in general litera- 
ture he was ill equippe(^ but Jefferson was wrong in 
his claim that Henry read nothing. Yet even he was 
obliged to confess that his " illiterate " associate on 
occasions would exhibit the widest knowledge, 
couched in the most proper language. In after years, 
Henry's grandson narrated how, when at college, he 
feared to face the quiz in the classics which his grand- 
father gave him. Patrick, early in life, was a man in 
trade, yet despite his attendance upon a shop, and 
even his occasional role as a publican, he made time, 
in the words of Wirt, to procure " a few light and 
elegant authors," besides practicing on the violin and 
the flute. 

We are told by authorities that he read his Livy \ 
regularly, that from Beverley and Stith he received 1 
the historical background of Virginia, and that But- 
ler's " Analogy " was one of his favorites. In after 
years, when in retirement, Henry's mind largely be- 
came centered on spiritual matters; he assailed the 
skepticism of the younger generation, — a disbelief in 
the fundamentals "of Christianity, which welcomed 
such literature as Thomas Paine's " Age of Reason " ; 



120 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

he even wrote a protest against the latter. Then at his 
own expense, while holding the office of Governor, he 
caused to be printed Jenyns's " View of the Internal 
Evidence of Christianity/' as well as a new edition 
of the "Analogy." After his years of activity, he 
settled down upon his estates, intent on the Bible, and 
reading the discourses of English divines. For his 
younger children he had engaged the services of the 
poet, Campbell, whose desire to come to America was 
checked by an older brother. Henry, in private life, 
enjoying the luxury of his grandchildren, attracted 
toward him the keen interest of a rising nation. 
Washington offered him every post of honor in his 
power, but his public days were over; Sunday even- 
ings he would read to his family, join them in sacred 
music, at times accompanying with his violin. At other 
times, his public concern was as keen as ever. Such a 
man must needs be a force unto the end ; Washington 
knew it, and felt that Henry was needed at the mo- 
ment, in 1799, when French influence and the Republi- 
canism of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, 
carrying with them the nullification and separatist 
theories, to his mind threatened the country. The re- 
sult was the dramatic scene of Henry's final speech, 
an infirm old man facing a multitude ; age seemed to 
drop from him as his voice mounted in picturesque 
periods to its customary eloquence, — ^a power which 
gripped in such telling, emotional clauses: "You 
dare not do it. . . . The steel would drop from your 
nerveless arms ! " " United we stand, divided we 
fall." This style Is melodramatic ; its conciseness, its 
vividness, its sting, are more than if it were expanded. 
" Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," 
cried John Marshall, compressing into an epigram the 
essence of a nation's life. 

Henry was gifted with deep discernment; he was 
always concerned with the human life before him; he 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 121 

could work upon the emotions of the people because 
he had studied them. But though at times this power 
seemed almost intuitive, it was, as Wirt emphasizes, 
due as much to his habit of seeking for information 
outside of himself, of learning from others, especially, 
from the average citizen; he placed a certain distrust- 
in the aristocracy; he sensed life. This ability comes 
to men whose knowledge is obtained from other 
sources than books; who after action give themselves 
up to intense revery. Professor Trent called him a 
" Shakespeare and Garrick combined," echoing the 
words of John Randolph. 

Metaphysics requires little of the exact knowledge 
which the modern historian must have before he be- 
gins to generalize. Although Henry's arguments 
against the Constitution were metaphysical, they were 
nevertheless the outcome of practical experience; he 
attained his views through common sense, and in the 
end it was his common sense that made him give in 
to the superior weight of others; he never, however, 
rid himself of an inborn distrust of the centralizing 
power of government. Possibly, in his sincere desire 
for a perfect document, he could not see, with Frank- 
lin, that at this moment it was the best that could 
be done. No more brilliant body was to be had than 
that which attended the Virginia Convention in order 
to ratify the Constitution; in the assemblage Henry 
stood as the one determined representative of the peo- 
ple. Judge St. George Tucker wrote of him : " If 
he soared at times like the eagle, and seemed, like the 
bird of Jove, to be armed with his thunder, he did not 
disdain to stoop like the hawk to seize his prey, but 
the instant he had done it, rose in pursuit of another 
quarry.'* 

As usual, Henry found his strength pitted in opposi- 
tion against Madison, Randolph, Pendleton, Henry 
Lee, Marshall, and Wythe. His chief objection was a 



122 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

matter of states' rights as opposed to national powers 
drawn directly from the states to be used upon the 
states; he believed in the separate sovereignty, he be- 
lieved in confederation. During the debates, his 
power of ridicule was constantly brought into effect- 
ive use. What the document needed was amend- 
ments, and Henry's influence in bringing about the 
adoption of the first ten was enormous. 

This sketch somewhat vaguely suggests the activity 
of Patrick Henry as a Revolutionary orator; it like- 
wise suggests some interesting speculations as to his 
statesmanship, for in this respect he was more of the 
state than of the nation. Having reached beyond the 
colonial idea, he feared for the national ; his own Vir- 
ginia had accused him of usurping power, and, as rep- 
resentative of the people, he was determined to pro- 
tect any state's rights which might be assumed by the 
Constitution. 

Henry's speeches did not have polish, they were not 
highly colored, they did not depend upon citation 
I from others. He made appeal to men's judgments, 
he drew upon experience, he exhausted historical 
sources only where they were essential to his purpose. 
In expression he was not florid; his speech was that 
of a plain man whose ripened intellect was fostered 
by himself through acute observation, through keen 
searching, through particular rather than general 
reading. Characteristic of the orator, his emotion 
was in control for effect, his eloquence had its ebb 
and flow; his imagination, in no way extravagant, 
and not often in evidence, gave, however, a certain 
power to his wording. In delivery he was courteous, 
often reserved, always dignified, even when Randolph 
as Governor turned his accustomed ire upon Henry's 
Constitution opposition. The correspondence, mostly 
oflicial. Is direct, although with a peculiar mixture of 
tautology, and hasty expression ; " yet upon the 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 123 

whole," writes Wirt, "it was pure and perspicuous, 
. . . free from affectation and frequently beautiful." 
Historically, Henry's position after the Revolution 
was based upon pronounced Southern characteristics — 
Southern because they persisted and became more 
fraught with sectional meaning. On close analysis, 
one might detect in them a persistence of colonial dis- 
trust. The great point to bear in mind, however, is 
that sectional differences had not yet become suffi- 
ciently differentiated to require special legislation. 
We might claim that the isolated community interest 
in the Southern colonies, which was the cause of 
Southern individualism, had something to do thus 
early with the adherence to states' rights. But 
Henry did not, in opposing the Constitution, argue 
for secession ; he was fighting to prevent an excess of 
power as applied to a union, and was perfectly willing 
to further any movement which might strengthen the 
confederation. Do we not here detect a metaphysical 
quibbling, partly justified by the absence of amend- 
ment, which was later to become the channel through 
which Calhoun was to be drawn? It was a question 
of implied rights versus stated rights — the chief cause 
of the Civil War. This opposition of Henry's was 
shared in the North as well. 



Ill 

Unlike Henry, George Washington (1732-1799) 
was essentially the sound and silent leader — a cautious 
general on the field, a sane guide through the critical 
period of constitutional adjustment. Tradition has 
encrusted his true proportions, idolization has taken 
from him his large humanity, and only now, after years 
of half-superstitious belief in the sensational fabrica- 
tions of the parson-biographer, " Weems, turned book 



124 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

agent," have the historian, the essayist, even the novel- 
ist, ventured to depict his essential greatness in the 
midst of his practical every-day existence. Some 
would take from him his generalship because his suc- 
cesses, paradoxically, were either defeats or retreats; 
others would overshadow his statesmanship, not rec- 
ognizing his genius for detecting in others that which 
would satisfy fully the moment or the hour. 

Washington was not the flabby saint, in boyhood 
or manhood, that Weems depicts. This ambulatory 
author, as Lodge states, was sincere perhaps in his 
adulation, but atrophied in his historical sense; the 
rector of popular appeal, boasting of his Mount Ver- 
non parish, aimed for widespread acceptance, and his 
" Life of Washington ; with Curious Anecdotes equally 
honorable to himself, and exemplary to his young 
countrymen," was circulated broadcast. By 1816, it 
had reached its seventeenth edition. It is false in its 
moral sentimentality, having, nevertheless, certain 
foundation facts. The Reverend Jacob Abbott could 
not have drawn Rollo so devoid of shading, so prig- 
gish in bearing as Weems drew Washington. Little 
did Henry Lee, when he delivered his famed funeral 
oration, famed largely for the oft-quoted " First in 
war," realize that this phrasing would inevitably con- 
tribute toward creating what Wister calls " a frozen 
image." The author of " The Virginian," therefore, 
in his " Seven Ages of Washington," proceeds to quote 
with zest Washington's characterization of Randolph, 
and it does strike the ear with a warmth that brings 
a thaw in its track: "A damned scoundrel God Al- 
mighty never permitted to disgrace humanity." 

Washington's mind was essentially practical; his 
whole training was practical, his early cultivation of 
imagination was sacrificed to the logarithmic exacti- 
tude of higher mathematics. Sparks would lead us to 
believe that Washington sedulously strove to curb an 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 125 

over-emotional nature; if so, then he willfully de- 
stroyed what might have enriched his culture. Pre- 
cision is the consuming characteristic of his life, it is 
the underlying virtue of his style; nevertheless, there 
is a certain grace to his expression at times which is 
innate rather than acquired, which is a natural indica- 
tion of personal worth rather than the product of con- 
scious art. When Sparks, in unwarranted manner, 
edited the actual wording of Washington's manu- 
scripts, he in part was continuing what the writer 
himself in early years had begun to do. Washington 
was not a man of set education; he was strictly an 
unerring student of life, whether his gaze turned 
across the western frontier, or whether details came 
close and directly under his observation. It is partly 
true that a man of such a nature imbibes unknowingly 
what others gain through set effort. Washington 
was never indifferent to education; he felt deeply the 
deficiency in himself, and he did not pretend that 
which he did not possess. When he read, it was hardly 
in the humanities, but rather in the more masculine 
literature which corresponded with the life he lived. 
Yet he was one given to the appreciation of what 
might be called recreative writing; he was a theater- 
goer of considerable extent, and Mr. Ford, in his 
monograph, has shown what a deprivation it was to 
the soldier when the Continental Congress ordered 
places of amusement closed. 

If history be read aright, Washington's greatness 
is all the more great because its silent total is due to 
the high seriousness of a definite personality, rather 
than wholly to the calm virtues of a peaceable man. 
He was such a personality as an untried government 
needed; self-control of a romantic inclination, of an 
unbounded temper, had made him wary of trusting 
first impressions based on passing emotion; circum- 
stances had early put upon his shoulders responsibili- 



126 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ties far exceeding his years. With excellent tradition, 
in the midst of an aristocratic life, he was forced to 
labor with his hands; he was given at an early a^e 
glimpses beyond the Allegheny — a view which later 
ripened into his profound opinions on the necessity for 
territorial expansion, a growth of large moment to the 
South. 

In intellectual progression, Washington logically 
follows Henry, for he carried the colonies beyond the 
colonial idea, besides aiding in freeing them. Henry 
was the inspiration of the word liberty, the prime 
mover in the initial impulse toward freedom. As gen- 
eral, Washington was the man of action ; as statesman, 
the man of far-reaching national vision, too practical 
if you will, to be experimental — too serious to be 
moved by ulterior design. Trained from youth to 
form his own judgments, his mental balance, a perfect 
example of sanity, became more acute as the demands 
on his statecraft grew more urgent. It is clearly 
evident, through his correspondence, that Washing- 
ton's outward reserve was no measure of his firm 
decisions formed through acute observation and 
through judicious reaching out for advice. The 
future humanitarian, who incidentally has the histor- 
ical sense, will unearth much in the published writings 
of Washington, to place him back within the ranks of 
his fellowmen, differentiating him from them through 
the force, dignity and kindliness of his actions among 
men. It is not enough that the historian master his 
facts in their relation with leaders; he should draw 
character in the light of these facts. Mr. Lodge's 
estimate of Washington, in the final summary to his 
biography, is adequate considering the limits of his 
space. Coupled with Professor Trent's appreciative 
essay, it should suggest a portraiture, well rounded 
and of full proportion. When Fiske spoke of the 
" unparalleled grandeur " of the general, he put the 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 127 

words noble and sensible in juxtaposition. Washino^- 
ton's circular letter to the heads of the states at the 
time of the disbandment of the Revolutionary army, 
and his farewell address, were not mere preachments 
turned for effect; they were the far-sighted opinions 
of a constructive mind working on personal knowl- 
edge and experience. 

Washington was indeed the first American; events 
raised him out of the narrow confines of sectionalism. 
His efforts were engaged quite as much in the direction 
of impressing an independent people with their 
sovereign power, as of changing the foreign attitude 
toward America from colonial tolerance to sovereign 
recognition. In fhe last analysis, he and Lincoln, as 
Mr. Lodge states, did come from the same stock, but 
they were not brought up in the same atmosphere. I 
picture Washington following a straight course, on 
one hand intent on his agricultural pursuits and living 
the active life of a country squire, on the other intent 
upon his chief concern as a statesman, to further every 
detail, no matter what the opposition, which would 
secure the power of the Union, and insure the develop- 
ment of the nation, untrammeled by foreign entangle- 
ment. He possessed the rare faculty of noting the 
limitations on both sides of a difficulty; he calculated 
that there would be differences in demands North and 
South, but to him, as he often stated in his letters, 
differences were as likely to arise between the northern 
and southern sections of states, because of unequal 
distribution of advantages. 

Some writers, in speaking of Washington as a party 
man, lose sight of the fact that he was a Federalist 
by force of circumstances, and because the party 
represented the views which he had already formulated 
when it came into existence. In very definite terms he 
has left on record his belief that party lines only 
led to " baleful effects " — to dissensions which inevi- 



128 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tably distracted and enfeebled public councils and pub- 
lic administrations. Washington was obsessed by the 
consuming desire to weld a nation out of the thirteen 
separate colonies. It is human nature that, in establish- 
ing the dignity of the executive, he should be accused 
of monarchical tendencies ; yet such was never his idea ; 
he believed in checks upon the government, but only 
as a means of balance, not as a hindrance to accom- 
plishment. His one idea was national; the westward 
progress was national to his mind, for he saw that so 
long as the Spaniards or the French retained a hold 
upon American soil, there would be complications to 
hinder expansion, and to limit internal transportation. 
When he proposed supporting a national university, 
there was a certain personal pride in his effort to 
insure that to the young men of the country which 
he had been denied; but also one must not omit his 
prime object, to keep American youth from foreign 
universities where they were in danger of imbibing 
sentiments inimical to the idea of republican govern- 
ment. 

Had Washington been a literary man in the true 
sense of the word, he would have avoided a certain 
didactic strain, both in his papers and in his letters, 
which brought upon him certain irritable censure. He 
felt himself constrained to point out on public occa- 
sions the dangers which beset the nation; he saw 
clearly where the ship of state was tending. He was 
not accustomed to speak in gilded phrases; even his 
farewell address was smoothed over by Hamilton ; but 
he possessed a quaint dignity of expression which is 
usually developed In one to whom, in private life, de- 
tails are referred for judgment. His letter to Nellie 
Custis, on the subject of love, Is typical of his parental 
attitude, and to stretch the figure, the nation was to 
him his largest child. His policy toward England and 
France was measured in accord with what he thought 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 129 

best for the nation. When Kentucky, in whose men 
flowed the pioneer blood w^hich pulsed to a large ex- 
tent in his veins, demanded the Mississippi as their 
right, Washington interpreted their attitude as the 
natural expansion of national life. In all questions 
that in after years served to disturb the South, he was 
certain to measure the consequences in terms of na- 
tional advantage. So persistent was he in this idea 
that he lent color to the party which claimed him. It 
is only in temperament and personal character that 
Washington was Southern. 

But even this is claiming a great deal. For a civi- 
lization to develop such manhood speaks well for the 
social heritage of the people. Virginia was pouring 
forth her very life blood, her whole strength, in con- 
structive leadership; territorially, she was shriveling 
through her own disinterested desire to be the mother 
of states, as well as of statesmen. In manner, bear- 
ing, speech, Washington was a Virginia gentleman of 
the early eighteenth century ; a gentleman by right of 
deed, not by right of position, unless, as in his case, 
the position was strengthened by action. In the light 
of a farmer, he was thrifty, and not wasteful of his 
land; had the Southern planters heeded the care with 
which the crops on his acres were alternated, they 
would have done wxll; had the South listened to his 
views on slavery — his, and Henry's, and Jefferson's — 
it would have been saved the inevitable calculation 
of the slave as an economic asset, and as a political 
question. There was gravity in his speech, in his 
humor of which he was not devoid, even in the social 
amenities in which he was not lacking. Thackeray's 
" The Virginians " partly portrays his poise ; the in- 
tensity of his gaze, the compression of his lips, be- 
spoke the deep force of his nature. 

The man, in high seriousness, in human bearing, in 
judicial mood, in healthy sport, in sound humor, in 



I30 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

practical calculation, is evident in his writing ; his style 
has no claim to aesthetics, yet in the analysis of char- 
acter, in the description of scenes, in graceful compli- 
ment which sounds strange to-day simply because the 
old-fashioned courteous art is disappearing or in 
transition, in the decisive calculations of good and evil, 
his excellence is pronounced. His estimates of events 
and of men at close range are to be valued historically, 
in the same manner that Poe's estimates of his literary 
contemporaries show in him the genuine critic. The 
men of that period were thus endowed with a quality 
of detachment; especially in the case of Washington, 
there were moments when events could be handled in 
the pure spirit of exact rather than of human justice. 
Before Marshall's gaze, the picture of national develop- 
ment moved in historical order; take his estimate of 
Washington and contrast it with Jefferson's varying 
opinions which fluctuated according to his feelings, his 
momentary prejudices, and one will hardly deny that 
the judicial quality of Jefferson's authorship was 
marred, not only by an extravagance of style at times, 
but as well by a party narrowness which Washington 
so continually deplored. 

But Jefferson carried the idea of statesmanship an- 
other step — a step nearer the Southern soil; he like- 
wise was a logical outcome of Washington, develop- 
ing the political character which in the South was 
later to be limited by a necessity for the defense of 
social institutions. 

IV 

Jefferson was essentially a man of the future; he 
was one in whom a consuming faith was larger than 
the fact. His mind was elastic; his enthusiasm was 
splendid even though his wisdom was not always 
sound. He was the type of man to whom the vision 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 131 

of an ample end came before he had thoroughly looked 
into the limiting means. He was a statesman because 
in those days statesmanship was in the air, but his 
speculative tendency, his wide interests, betokened the 
dreamer. An abiding trust in human nature among 
the rank and file was the chief richness of his demo- 
cratic principles, and his inconsistencies, which are seen 
to exist between his utterance and his act, are due 
largely to his zealous intent to win for the people 
what was best for them; he hardly swerved from his 
fundamental beliefs. 

Such a mind is attractive, on one hand because of 
its catholicity of interests, and on the other because of 
its surprising theories of large originality. The ardent 
manner in which he approached a new topic was 
measure of his personality. Unlike Henry, his idea of 
liberty was philosophical ; unlike Washington, his con- 
ception of the nation was based on an intense belief in 
the freedom of the individual ; unlike most of his con- 
temporaries, he was the idealist whose generalities 
were beyond immediate accomplishment. Such a man 
assuredly tests all conditions, all requirements, not ac- 
cording to the condition, but according to the future 
need. Washington was safe; Jefferson, through ob- 
servation and rich power of projection, risked con- 
sequences, imagining the ultimate effect. Without 
such characteristics, he never would have been able 
to overleap the Constitution and purchase Louisiana. 

An estimate of such a man is difficult to reach; if 
you indicate his official life, you realize that to him the 
greatest fact was not his presidency, or his vice-presi- 
dency; not his foreign ministry or his other varied 
public offices : but his Declaration of Independence, his 
Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and his posi- 
tion as Father of the University of Virginia. His 
attitude toward the people was that of the romanticist 
whose simple faith in life, in human motive, overcame 



132 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

any doubt of accomplishment. This simple faith was 
another cause for his inconsistencies ; he swerved from 
side to side as he thought it best for the interests of the 
people rather than of the government; according to 
this view, he interpreted the Constitution narrowly or 
broadly, as the case might be. 

It is easy to gain a one-sided picture of any of these 
men of constructive days ; but Jefferson's many facets 
send forth fascinating rays. Like most Southerners 
of the time, his home life was full of rich charm in its 
rural beauty, in the warmth of its social intercourse, 
in its easy industry upon an ample estate. Monticello 
became a Mecca for pilgrims, and he in truth its very 
sage. This position, in retirement after years of 
varied work, was due to a popularity gained through 
daring, but also through his democratic views. 

In his boyhood, sprung from Welsh stock, and the 
patrician blood of the Randolphs, he first developed 
that application which in after years served him to 
such an excellent purpose. He studied fifteen hours a 
day at William and Mary College, which concentration 
embraced extensive reading in Greek, Latin, French, 
Italian, and English literature, and later, while torn 
in a love affair, he read law with Wythe, and wished 
Coke to the Devil. He was a believer in precept, in 
routine, in the theory of the simple life; he was con- 
stantly questioning himself, rneasuring his attitude and 
actions by what he imagined his friends would do 
under similar circumstances, such men as Prof. Small 
of the Departments of Mathematics and Philosophy, 
" who probably fixed the destinies of my life," Peyton 
Randolph, and Wythe, with whom he labored for 
democratic reforms in Virginia. 

At an early age, Jefferson was given to weighty 
company and intense beliefs; also his personal habits 
and tastes became early accentuated, and his love for 
farming particularly helped to increase his income, be- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 133 

sides impressing him with the importance of agricul- 
ture and the healthy advantages of rural life, as op- 
posed to the dangers of concentrated population in 
cities. At the age of fifty-seven, when trying to sum 
up the several benefits given through his endeavors to 
the world, he placed his experiments with the olive 
plant and with rice alongside of his efforts for reli- 
gious freedom, for the abolition of the slave trade, for 
putting an end to entails, primogeniture, and other 
legislation, which, as Morse says, often forced his 
imagination in riotous channels for the benefit of man- 
kind. It is a natural coincidence that his dreams of 
love, his liking for Ossian, and his experimental agri- 
culture should mark the same period. 

As a Revolutionary leader, the Virginians began to 
consider him too radical, perhaps because his tendency 
to sweeping expression, his desire for reformation, and 
his energy against all conservative institutions dear to 
aristocratic conservatism were coming into decided 
conflict with the old colonial precedence. He soon be- 
came noted as a document writer of skill, dash, and 
daring, and his drawing of the Declaration was a 
notable instance of creative work, if emphasis is laid, 
where Ford places it, upon the skill with which the 
spirit of America is caught in expression. The sen- 
sitiveness of Jefferson was not regarded by a cautious 
Congress, which in many ways corrected the over- 
fullness of his phrasing. But as I have already pointed 
out as being clearly analyzed by Fiske, Jefferson's ideal- 
ism, his sweeping phrase, were hardly due to French 
influence, even though he was familiar with the Vol- 
taire and Rousseau schools of philosophy. 

His work in the Virginia legislature was ably rein- 
forced by George Mason and Monroe; there was a 
strong feeling within him that now, freed of monarchi- 
cal subjection, governmental ideas must be made to 
conform with growing republican ideals. His activity in 



134 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the House was reactionary; the laws of inheritance, 
the courts of justice, the Established Church, all came 
under his disfavor; he was intent upon satisfying the 
needs of the lower classes with justice, and had his 
school system been supported, he would have done 
much to counteract the isolation of Virginia rural life. 
At this moment also he was intent upon a plan of 
abolishing slavery, which, although it may not have 
been practical, at least pointed to his realization of a 
future difficulty, and to his typical feeling, which is not 
Southern but white feeling, that even the negro is an 
inferior being and that race integrity must be pre- 
served. 

His unpopularity as Governor of Virginia during 
the Revolution was largely due to his inability to meet 
the situation because the State lacked the necessary 
equipment for defense, but also to his unwisdom in 
executive work. Much more suited to his talents 
was his originality in drawing up constitutions, in 
constructing territories, and, when he became a mem- 
ber of the Congress of Confederation, he not only was 
entrusted with the presentation of Virginia's ceded 
northwest territory to the states, but he likewise drew 
up a governmental regime which, among its strictures, 
abandoned slavery and suggested such fantastic names 
for the new region as Michigania, Metropotamia, and 
Pelisipia. 

When he went as Minister to France, his interest 
was naturally involved in the Revolution, and his 
standing as the writer of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence made the National Assembly seek his advice. 
But instead of being materially affected by events 
abroad, they only served to make him more American ; 
his " Notes on Virginia,*' in some way his most dis- 
criminating work of the pen, had won for him a com- 
mendable reputation, published in a French edition in 
1784. The Conservatives began again to bewail his 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 135 

radicalism, he who, when Shays' Rebellion was reported 
to him, wrote of his approval of rebelHon under special 
conditions, as conducing- to prevent stagnation. This 
was characteristic of Jefferson, who was always rest- 
ive, experimental, progressive. At the time of ad- 
justment, of estabhshment, his species of mind was 
essential; in some ways it was a safeguard against 
over and sudden crystallization. 

Jefferson's first stand against the Constitution was 
indicative of his rooted objection to any fast limita- 
tion of the people; a document fixed in detail would 
naturally be difficult to change with the variation of 
existing condition. Such was Henry's fear when he 
insisted upon the adoption of amendments. 

The historical importance of the juxtaposition of 
Jefferson and Hamilton in Washington's cabinet is 
foreign to our immediate purpose, except in so far as 
in the adjustment of states, and in the drawing of 
party lines, the sectional distinctions became more and 
more marked. For historians emphasize that Jefferson's 
policies were more nearly in accord with agricultural 
demands, while Hamilton's far-reaching financial 
schemes were framed with commercial and manufac- 
turing needs in mind — a concentration^of power which 
harmonized with the demands of concentrated popula- 
tion. *' All American history," writes Fiske, "has 
since run along the lines marked out by the antago- 
nism between Jefferson and Hamilton." Jefferson's 
personal animosity in these disputes ended in attacks 
which do not fairly represent him as a statesman, but 
rather reveal that sensitiveness of feeling which colored 
his views of men's motives, and deceived him into 
believing the worst of his adversaries. In such spirit, 
he penned the unfortunate " Anas." 

But the conflict of party views continued to increase, 
and Jefferson's opposition to the Alien and Sedition 
Laws, which took shape in his Kentucky Resolutions, 



136 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

based on the sovereign right of states from which the 
general government drew its Hfe, paved the way for 
Calhoun's principles of nullification. What in theory 
Jefferson took to be a safeguard against the usurpa- 
tion of centralized power, later became a cause for 
secession, a move which he so deplored, but the pos- 
sibility of which he clearly foresaw in 1820. 

Jefferson was a most inconsistent Southerner, ^nd 
yet his writings are replete with just those ideas which 
harmonize with the feelings of the Southern people. 
He foresaw the Monroe doctrine which was a neces- 
sary protection for the dignity of the nation; he de- 
tected the radical sectional differences w^hich underlay 
the party lines; he early showed an antipathy toward 
New England, partly because of its predominant Fed- 
eral policy. But in the territorial expansion w^hich he 
did so much to hasten, his view was wholly national, 
nor did he thoroughly realize the effect this would 
have upon the territorial readjustment of the South. 
In the same breath in which he wrote : " Our peculiar 
security is in the possession of a written constitution,'* 
he also was involved in the most unconstitutional of 
negotiations. It was such acts of inconsistency which 
conflicted with his attitudes and statements in other 
directions, and which often made him hedge. As 
President, his rashness, his unfitness in certain prac- 
tical details relating to finance and commerce, drew 
upon him censure which was justified; but much of the 
distorted impression we gain of him is had through 
too close an adherence to the disputes and imputations 
which clustered around pure motive. The best way to 
regard these men of Revolutionary times is in per- 
spective, a perspective which, as Morse says, consists 
of " large lines of . . . purposes and policy held with 
much steadiness in the noble direction of a perfect 
humanitarianism." 

In retirement, Jefferson still exerted his influence 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 137 

and continued his active correspondence; he was now 
safe in imagining the future in this country, which 
looked toward the acquirement of Florida and of 
Cuba. His one desire seemed to be an harmonious 
balance of the forces of society; on paper this is easy 
to contemplate, shorn of its human spirit of aggran- 
dizement which brought the tariff within reach of 
grasping poHticians, shorn likewise of the unfailing 
principle of compensation which is as dominant in the 
affairs of commerce as in the affairs of the spirit. He 
little knew how prophetic was his review of the 1820 
Compromise when he wrote, " I considered it at once 
as the knell of the Union." 

Monticello became the center of social interest; in 
fact, Jefferson's hospitality was shamefully imposed 
upon; yet, notwithstanding outside distractions, he 
followed the politics of the day, planned his univer- 
sity, and put his papers in order, entrusting his future 
to Madison, to whom he wrote : " You have been a 
pillar of support through life. Take care of me when 
dead." This effort at self-protection was largely the 
result of his dislike of Marshall's " Life of Washing- 
ton," in his opinion a partisan estimate. 

It is no easy matter to sum up the many-sided 
nature revealed in a correspondence of such enormous 
scope as Jefferson's ; he was affectionate and attractive, 
sensitive and sentimental, shrewd and sincere, to 
quote Morse ; his radicalism of mind went farther than 
his actual radical action, while his motives were usually 
sound and disinterested. It is quite natural that a 
man of such temperament should pose, but his popular 
concern was fundamentally great, while his opposition 
to a concentration of power, as well as his hatred for 
New England business methods, fitted in with the 
tenor of Southern thought. His opposition to internal 
improvement carried on by the general government 
indicated his regard for states' rights, and even sug- 



138 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

gested his belief in disunion on this account. 
Yet he did not reject the idea of internal improve- 
ments, per se, 

Jefferson was a healthy combination of qualities, 
mental and physical; he was born to theory, his in- 
terests were so widespread as to seem almost incon- 
gruous. This framer of state documents, this man 
of public trust — even though at heart he was more 
given to retirement — was also a writer on Anglo-Sax- 
on, and on the " Art of Poesy." If the financial schemes 
of Hamilton were muddled in his brain, he was a con- 
stant investigator of religious matters, not for the 
sake of answering any charges of atheism brought 
against him, but because he was personally concerned 
with the problems of philosophy. 

By innate inclination Jefferson was the scholar; his 
mental scope was more vigorous than Lanier's, whose 
type of mind was not restive but chivalric; yet it is 
not far-stretched to connect the names of these tvvO as 
typifying the forecast of the university function on 
one hand, and of the university scholar on the other. 
I say, Jefferson was primarily the scholar, with a 
streak of the practical, a great strain of the prophetical, 
and the decided incHnation of the dreamer. In some 
respects his educational activity — a blend of the utili- 
tarian and the theorist — foreshadowed the modern 
educator — a President Eliot of Harvard founding the 
University of Virginia. 

Jefferson left a political impress upon the South, 
and likewise influenced to a large extent the cultural 
phase of its civilization; but, as in so many of his 
plans, he was far beyond his times. Perhaps it is unfair 
to lay to his discredit the whole of the ill-will heaped 
upon William and Mary College after the Revolution ; 
nevertheless, Jefferson's interest was soon deflected 
from his alnia mater, and once involved in this other 
institution which was to be, in his mind, an intellectual 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 139 

capital to offset Washington, the poHtical center, his 
every act drained the strength of the older college, 
which from that time declined. But William and Mary 
College occupied a big place in the making of the 
Union. H. A. Adams writes : " In Virginia the his- 
toric process began with English traditions of family 
culture; it developed through the personal adminis- 
tration of rural estates, through vestry meetings and 
county courts, and the House of Burgesses. The 
evolution of a higher class of politicians, professional 
men and cultivated gentlemen, was first accomplished 
at Williamsburg, that school of citizens, churchmen, 
and statesmen." There is no detracting from its 
initial position as an object lesson in government. — 
" a unique seminary of history and politics — of history 
in the very making, of politics in the praxis." 

No doubt, the Episcopal preponderance at William 
and Mary looked askance at Jefferson's scheme of 
education, which also drew distrust from the dis- 
senters. But as Jefferson himself declared, he disap- 
proved of the Gothic idea which clung to the past ; in 
learning, religion, government, he would trust to the 
future. General education in Virginia would have 
profited by heeding some of Jefferson's democratic 
notions, if not by adoption of his principles, at least in 
emulation of his activity. 

It was Washington's one idea to keep American 
youth from seeking foreign instruction ; however broad 
Jefferson's idea was, in which he liberally balanced the 
practical with the ideal, in which he generously sought 
the advice of outsiders upon the matter of a curric- 
ulum, he, nevertheless, had a political fear which was 
only a hair line separated from a sectional fear of 
Harvard and the North — in those days included in the 
one opprobrious term of Federalism. In 1821, he 
wrote : " How many of our youths she now has, 
learning the lessons of anti-Missourianism, I know 



I40 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

not; but a gentleman, lately from Princeton, told me 
he saw there the list of the students at that place, and 
that more than half were Virginians. These will re- 
turn home, no doubt, deeply impressed with the sacred 
principles of our holy alliance of restrictionists." 

After the Revolution, William and Mary College, 
as a state institution, lost the larger part of its rev- 
enue; then events seemed to be pitted against its 
rehabiliment, by the removal of the capital from Wil- 
liamsburg to Richmond. Had it accepted Jefferson's 
proffer, it might have become a state university of 
some large importance, but rejecting his approach in 
1779, its rival came into being, drawing from it a 
considerable proportion of its student body. It is 
significant to note that though Southern men flocked 
North, no Northern men to speak of flocked South 
to this institution, famed as the home of statesmen. 
This may have been because in the North, the people 
had universities of their own, and they disliked to adapt 
themselves to a climate not so vigorous; and also be- 
cause before the extensive building of railroads, travel 
between sections was tedious. But there were in addi- 
tion sectional differences, evident thus early, differences 
largely social, inasmuch as they affected the mental 
quickness of the people; differences denominational, 
influencing the mental daring and breadth of vision ; 
differences political, which aggravated the spirit of the 
Civil War. 

William and Mary boasts of being the first college 
in America with a complete faculty ; it established the 
honor system, characteristic of Southern life, and 
which Southern men, coming North, engrafted on 
Princeton. In political economy, in municipal law, in 
history, in modern languages, it gave its energy to the 
initial impulse in this country. But lack of a concen- 
trated effort and a concentrated population had effect 
upon the culture of the people, making it formal; to 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 141 

which may be added that the mental attitude was one 
of imperviousness to new ideas. 

The test of any educational system is to be found, 
not in its effect upon a particular type of mind, but 
in how far it satisfies the democratic level of so^ 
ciety. Jefferson not only foresaw the modern uni- 
versity, but he realized the need of general instruc- 
tion. " I do most anxiously wish to see the highest 
degrees of education given to the higher degrees of 
genius, and to all degrees of it, so much as may en- 
able them to read and understand what is going on in 
the world, and to keep it right. . . ." But in an aris- 
tocratic society where there were such distinctions be- 
tween classes, where the denominational idea struggled 
with the scientific fact, education could not gain wide- 
spread acceptance where community interest was still 
of a feudal nature. 

Riding from Monticello to the university, Jefferson's 
keen superintendence of the executive details stamped 
him in act, if not in name, as the first president of the 
institution, but in reality, not until Dr. Alderman was 
installed in 1905 was the Board of Visitors dominated 
by an official head. Yet notwithstanding, Jefferson's 
spirit stamped the university from the very outset. 
His plans were Utopian ; restive himself under any in- 
tellectual restraint, we find him supporting the elective 
system; himself free from religious dogma, his chief 
concern in establishing a faculty was to discard the 
chair of divinity, but if possible to establish a profes- 
sorship for each tenet of faith. Those were the days 
when America, not quite sure of the existence of its 
American character, opposed the appointment of for- 
eign professors; when, after procuring a man for an 
intellectual post, his pure knowledge was tested, not 
by its general service but by its spiritual background. 
Jefferson's correspondence indicates his struggle to 
circumvent opposition on these points. 



142 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Thus, the importance of such a personality as we 
have attempted to compass in these few pages stands 
self-evident. We glean of Jefferson's position 
through his own writing, through the opinions of 
others. The character of the literature he created was 
of the statesman's type without the orator's eloquence ; 
it was not aesthetic, though more than any other man 
of his period, Jefferson's pliability of spirit, his catho- 
licity of taste, gave a certain light grace and flowing 
ease to his style. The substance of his idea showed 
imagination; the expression of that idea, sometimes 
close in treatment, at other times general in statement, 
was never florid, after he had passed the period of 
youthful love and Ossianic admiration. What is most 
significant about these men born of the South is the 
fact that out of a civilization, rural and paternalistic, 
emanated constructive minds of such different expres- 
sion as are to be found in Henry, Washington, and 
Jefferson. The importance of Madison, though indi- 
vidually distinctive and different, is traditionally of 
the same caliber. 



CHAPTER VI 
REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE 
Poetry and Poets 



It is impossible to separate the men of the Revolu- 
tion from the Constitutional Statesmen of the early 
national period. We pass from one to the other with 
the flow of events, and reach the conclusion that very 
largely the distinction between types must be measured 
by the sociological, economic transference of empha- 
sis from one factor to another. We have dwelt upon 
three distinct phases of the constructive mind, and 
while it is true that what we might say regarding some 
of the equally distinctive contemporaries would add 
but little to the general conception, still the individual 
energy of Marshall and Madison — statesmen of the 
most solid caliber — is of the first importance. 

In studying certain features of Madison's career, 
the steady development of sectional differences, the 
accentuation of the political presence of the negro, the 
variation of economic interests which colored the de- 
bates on imposts for the support of the young govern- 
ment — all of these elements conduced to draw the lines 
of political estrangement further than were already 
drawn in the philosophical division of Federalists and 
Republicans. 

Through all this imminent period, Madison, with 
his vast command of constitutional law, was necessary 
to the adjustment which was taking place slowly, and 
amidst ominous threats of civil war and disunion. 
The state papers gathered together in " The Federal- 

143 



144 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ist " formed solid argument, and what is true of Madi- 
son as a writer here, is true of him as a stylist in his 
letters and other documents. " If there was no play 
of fancy," writes his biographer, Gay, " there was no 
forgetfulness of facts. If there was lack of imagina- 
tion, there was none of historical illustration. ... If 
manner was forgotten, method was not." In a litera- 
ture where proof was the essential object, where per- 
suasion, close logic, interpretation, represented the 
chief end, one hardly need look for aesthetics. 

Yet the solid reasoning of the Revolutionary states- 
men was not without its magnificence as literature — 
the classic of legal interpretation is symbolized to this 
day in the name of Marshall. In them, as yet, the 
fundamental was not obscured by sectional legislation. 
The historical figures of the next period were brought 
up in close contact with this broad type of citizen. It 
was the mysterious destiny of peoples that resulted 
in the defection of John C. Calhoun, some would even 
say of the poHtical apostasy of Madison himself. 

In passing from the social forces of this initial epoch 
of a nation's life to those of a later time, we are able 
to carry with us all the incipient elements leading to an 
eventual civil war. In fact, Randolph, whose life was 
a peculiar mixture of consuming egotism and ar- 
rogance, with brilliancy and momentary sanity, had in 
his views on the Constitution, suggested the possible 
erection of a Southern Confederacy. Events which 
led to territorial expansion, to political and economic 
adjustment, must necessarily be considered in connec- 
tion with the rise of the Lower South — a condition 
which characterizes the ante-bellum period and marks 
the statesmen of the time. Every Southern man of 
public life left his opinion as to the ultimate meaning 
of the Constitution. The Revolutionary leaders passed 
readily from the field to Congress ; they possessed the 
ease of adaptability; they could sign Declarations and 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 14S 

interpret new laws; they could discard unwise imposi- 
tion and interpret for themselves. The pen was a 
ready instrument, unconscious of beauty, but aglow 
with the idea. George Mason, David Ramsay and 
others uttered their opinions with the conviction that 
resulted in action. This was a moving literature, 
though it may not now be of vast aesthetic worth — 
its value being permanently historical in its broadest 
sense. But if the test of writing lies in its effect, then 
the pamphleteers, beginning with Richard Bland; the 
orators, beginning with Henry ; and the statesmen, be- 
ginning with Washington, are types of power, 
dynamically measured in their voluminous papers. 
Such literature won an eternal principle of liberty and 
established a Union on that principle. This is not a 
little to claim for any species of authorship. And, as 
compared with the same species just before the Civil 
War, we shall note philosophy passing into expediency. 



II 

It is wrong, however, to regard literally the state- 
ment of Mr. Sears that the literary energy which had 
in the colonial period been largely engaged in " theo- 
logical athletics," was now to be wholly centered on a 
discussion of political rights. There were other in-r 
tellectual activities in the South ; the historian on one 
hand, the doctor on the other, were both working in 
the local spirit. Besides which, the scientific tendency 
was manifest in the societies which, for instance, were 
organized in Charleston, South Carolina, even as in 
Philadelphia. If in the North, Franklin was framing 
his rules of life, Jefferson in the South was doing the 
same. If Franklin was engaged in scientific investi- 
gation and experiment, Madison, at least, was con- 
cerned in paleontology. The mental and the commer- 
cial states, strange as the connection may seem, had to 



146 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

contend with much the same drawbacks. When 
Madison was fighting for Southern ports of entry, as 
much to encourage commerce in the South as to raise 
a revenue for the government, he did not realize that 
slavery, the land system, the class distinction, the 
isolated population, the discouragement of cities, were 
senang to affect the Southern temperament, which was 
already colored to some extent by conditions of 
climate. The literature of the South was limited in 
just the way in which the civilization itself was 
restricted. Hence, while expression may reflect the 
life, it does not adequately measure the richness of that 
life or the full activity of the people. The literary 
romanticism of the South was but a faint reflex of 
the deep sentiment prompting action and directing 
domestic relationship. 

Henry Laurens may be taken as representative of 
one kind of writer. Preceding the Revolution, he was 
a non-conformist as far as aggressiveness was con- 
cerned, living up to his neutral policy and showing a 
determined loyalty to the King. He was of Huguenot 
strain, and held in South Carolina a position of equal 
importance with Rutledge and Drayton. In all his 
dealings, his honesty was scrupulous, his judgment 
careful, so careful indeed that, during the strenuous 
moments of the Stamp Act, when violence came close 
upon petition, he was accused of being the King's 
man. 

But Laurens only reflected the caution of many 
colonists of similar mind; he sought adjustment, not 
contenting himself to wait for the issue. In London, 
during 1774, he petitioned Parliament, warning in- 
dividual members of England's impolitic attitude, him- 
self sincerely eager for reconciliation. Yet he did not 
advocate the unwise taxation, however much person- 
ally he was willing to submit to it, as his correspond- 
ence will indicate. His position was not easy nor was it 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 147 

agreeable to have his house searched, as it was by sus- 
pecting citizens during 1765- Only an: exemplary 
nature could view the incident in light manner. " Is 
it not amazing," he wrote afterward with naivete, 
" that such a number of men, many of them, heated 
with liquor & all armed with Cutlasses & Clubs did not 
do one penny damage to my Garden, not even to walk 
over a bed?" 

Laurens, however, despite his slow determination, 
was gradually brought around to the support of the 
colonies; he succeeded Hancock as President of the 
Continental Congress, and in 1779 was on his way to 
Holland with papers from the new government, when 
he was captured by the English and imprisoned in the 
Tower for two years. 

Again we find an instance here of Southern abhor- 
rence of slavery. Laurens declared to his son in 1776 
that were it not for laws preventing, he would manu- 
mit many of the so-called " Chattel " (a term which 
figured in the apportionment of population, when 
Madison proposed the 3-5 ratio between black and 
white) and do away with the entail of slavery. 

The historian's point of view is discovered in most 
of what Laurens wrote ; he was accurate, logical, pene- 
trative. Not only that, but his style had the commend- 
able quality of lucidity. He was tolerant, and a most 
worthy father, anxious for his son, residing in Lon- 
don, to reach his own conclusions as to the right or 
wrong of the colonies. His motive was strong and 
pure, his observation keen. His correspondence was 
carried on with such men as Morris, Washington, and 
Adams; he could be matter-of-fact, kind, sarcastic, 
picturesque and vivid. His mind was full of dignity, 
and often his expressions were sprightly. The while 
he was held in the Tower, with insults heaped upon 
him, with the pressure of bribery brought to bear upon 
him, he never lost either his high seriousness, or his 



148 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

interest in affairs of state. Even as a student, his 
time in prison was spent, first in reading Gibbon, and 
afterwards in penning reflections on what he had read 
— which worthy occupation brought him the praise of 
Edmund Burke. To the latter belongs the credit of 
seeking Laurens's release, which was effected in an ex- 
change with Cornwallis. 

Two qualities about the writing of Laurens are evi- 
dent at once ; first, turning to his description after the 
battle of Brandywine, sprightliness is heightened by 
dramatic crispness, by short sentences not jerky in 
effect, but essentially active, panoramic. But as a 
balance, he was also sane, governed by common sense 
and farsightedness. In an official capacity, during 
1 78 1, he wrote a descriptive resume of the chief char- 
acteristics of South Carolina, dwelling upon the 
South's politeness of manner, her hospitality, her com- 
fortable homes, her pride in agriculture. He did not 
see the extravagance of her trading and credit system, 
and in accordance with the Southern view, he was con- 
vinced that though forced to manufacture necessities 
during the Revolution, the states in that section would 
soon return to their rural occupations. 

We may regard Laurens as a typical colonial con- 
servatist, whose non-conformist policy drew upon him 
the distrust, in the beginning, of his neighbors, and 
likewise helped to formulate English opinion of him, 
fairly represented in such phrases as " Whatever an 
American may be in private life, honor and good faith 
enter not into his ideas of a politician." 

In many ways, it would not be difficult to sum up 
this literature in a few words, but while we might 
thus fix, in chart fashion, the trend of Revolutionary 
letters, we would far from succeed in gaining the spirit 
behind it. For the volumes are pregnant with fresh 
memories, with a charm of personal narrative and 
close contact, filled with expressions whose very quaint- 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 149 

ness is fraught with the essence of a personal life. A 
pretty monograph might be written, connecting the 
names of Evelyn Byrd, Eliza Wilkinson, and 
Dolly Madison — one the striking belle of colonial 
manners, the other a vivacious widow of parlous war 
times, and the last, young even at four score years, a 
graceful diplomat of the early national period. 

Little is known of the young Mrs. Wilkinson, of 
Charleston, whose twelve letters have been saved from 
the " damps " of time ; but enough of the woman 
saturates these yellow pages to give us no mean opin- 
ion of her intellect, and to impress us with her clever- 
ness in the use of the pen. She did not wish to hide 
her feminine qualities, she was naively proud of her 
ability to discuss matters of importance. It is this rapid 
shifting between these two points that lends permanent 
value to her dialogue. 

The style of these letters bears all the marks of 
gentle courtesy, of gay humor, of surface prejudice, 
and of social pride, that stamped the Southern matron 
of the day. Given to moralizing, she resorts to 
apostrophes at all times, in accordance with the ac- 
cepted attitude of the period; in attending those be- 
neath her in rank, she condescended with an inborn 
grace that enriched her possession of refinement, even 
though proclaiming in the same breath the falsity of 
her standard. 

One might almost claim for Mrs. Wilkinson in these 
letters the first attempt to fix the peculiar dialect of the 
negro, an experiment which succeeded about as well as 
Poe's conventional attempts in "The Gold Bug." 
She very well expressed the general distrust of the 
negro by the white man, a fact which, in part, she at- 
tributed to the calculating plans of the British. 

Mrs. Wilkinson, as a widow, cannot escape beinp; 
called gay; oftentimes she was wholly consumed by 
reflection, but whether thus or in the midst of epis- 



I50 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tolary chat, she still retains a pleasant banter which is 
deeper than style, and at the basis of character. The 
picture of her under all circumstances is attractive, 
whether she is losing her slipper while escaping the 
approaching British, or whether she is actually under 
examination, evading the cross-questions of a pursu- 
ing body of redcoats. She quotes verse from Young 
and others, she is ready with her Bible, and familiar 
with her Ovid and Homer. She is affected lightly by 
external condition, all the while mentally aware of 
the actual perspective ; in this lies the poignancy of her 
humor. 

Of course, one must estimate these letters from 
their letter value; they are girlish confidences, tinged 
with some of the experience that shows a woman pos- 
sessed of an eternally youthful heart — grace shot 
through with the humanity that is the only true cul- 
ture. The personal tension of the Southern campaign 
is couched in these few pages with suggestions as to 
all the serious topics filling the minds of the emanci- 
pated colonists. But sweet and tender though she 
was, Mrs. Wilkinson nevertheless would not bend to 
the feminine yoke of " domestic concerns '' alone. She 
was against those authors who regarded the feminine 
sex as " contemptible earth worms " ; what she wanted 
was liberty of thought! Dolly Madison was to hear 
further on this subject when Harriet Martineau came 
to America. 

And so, this "rnerry widow" with her girlish de- 
light in men, her sentiment of heart, her feminine dis- 
like of the horrid war of cannon, her quick response to 
the lights and shadows of victory and defeat, proves 
delightful reading and conveys a good measure of the 
weight of war which fell upon the Southern home. 

Another woman of different temperament is worthy 
of our consideration for three special reasons: first, 
as Martha Laurens (1759-1811), she serves as a 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 151 

literary link between her father, Henry Laurens, and 
her husband. Dr. David Ramsay; second, because in 
her spiritual fervor she represents the spirit of the age 
which fostered such hterature as was written by Mrs. 
Trimmer and Isaac Watts, which approved of such 
educational methods as Rousseau framed on natural- 
istic tendencies; and third, her literary reliques being 
carefully and tenderly overlooked and edited by her 
husband, present a phase of Dr. Ramsay's character, 
other than his medical and historical tastes. 

The little volume of " Memories," seared In leaf, 
and leather-worn in binding, exudes religious fervor, 
contemning the flesh, and dedicating the soul to God. 
Diary confessions, religious programs, long private 
meditations in the vein of Mrs. Trimmer, — these are 
the motives of the pages, though the faint aroma of 
domestic care, of practical Christianity, of external in- 
tercourse, is evident. In the letters from Laurens, we 
note the excellent father, and a family devotion which 
is charming to contemplate. But in women of such 
avowed religiosity as Mrs. Ramsay, it is difficult to 
grasp the intellectual strength save in the record of 
duties actually performed. Mrs. Ramsay was an ex- 
ceptional mother — truly a Mrs. Trimmer transplanted, 
whose sweetness sometimes dimmed the light, but 
whose presence made the world a better place. 

Now and then in these letters we catch a tiny vein 
of loving humor, of poetic feeling. As literature, 
which they were never intended to be, they must be 
treated with a kindly imagination; thousands have 
written as she, but she stands in old-fashioned contrast 
with Mrs. Wilkinson and Mrs. Madison, and as such, 
represents a side-light on Southern character. Tem- 
perament of this kind stands the test of the heart which 
speaks the same language all the time, despite the want 
of vigorous style. 

The old-fashioned reticence of Ramsay in editing 



152 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

these letters of his second wife is fair indication of his 
manly nature and conjugal devotion; he attempts no 
more than a commentary in his notes which comprise 
a large part of the interest in this small book. He 
was a person of wide activity; as fighter, as surgeon, 
as historian and medical writer, his conscientiousness 
and retentive mind, his method and thoroughness gave 
him distinction. 

The historical method according to modern scholar- 
ship was not the method of the early Southern histo- 
rian ; he was too near the event not to allow imagina- 
tion and, in some instances, personal participation to 
humanize fact. History was often written as recrea- 
tion from political duties; thus Ramsay, in preparing 
his volumes on the Revolution and on Washington, 
took advantage of his congressional duties to be near 
the state papers which he most needed. The histo- 
rian's manner was easy in those days; it was full of 
philosophical side distinctions; it was framed in 
courtesy that fain would keep from wounding ears by 
the recital of disagreeable details. As a physician, 
Ramsay was careful to study the physical requirements 
of Southern climate ; as a student, his comparative at- 
tempts revealed to him certain limitations of the 
Southern life; but so thoroughly imbued was he with 
the Southern habit of life, that he placed extra 
emphasis upon the unbounded advantages of agricul- 
ture. 

He was a man who pleaded for enlightenment be- 
cause of the evil effects of mental density — truly a 
proper soil for the craftiness of a possible Catiline. He 
spoke in terms of lessons to be drawn from the past ; 
he wrote as though events of the present must contain 
lessons for the future. The historical style was 
closely allied to narrative; what it lost in exactitude, 
it gained in ease and picturesqueness ; it held just a 
little of the orator's appeal, but it did not sacrifice the 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 153 

source for the sake of invention, which was the chief 
historical weakness of Weems, that Southern jack-of- 
all-trades. 

But as men of practical legislative experience, Ram- 
say, Drayton, and Wirt recognized the importance of 
public documents in the preparation of history and of 
biography. Men with such minds as Madison and 
Marshall could retain the necessary reference equip- 
ment, but even as Jefferson realized the necessity for 
public libraries in order to spread enlightenment among 
the people, so it was soon found necessary, on South- 
ern initiative, to agitate the establishment of a Con- 
gressional library. 

Yet, as Mr. Page so well declares in his essay on 
" The Want of a History of the Southern People," up 
to the time of the establishment of the Southern and 
State Historical Societies, the South had been lax in 
the preservation of records. The value of the history 
written in the days of Ramsay, Drayton, and Wirt is 
due only in part to accuracy, but also to the fact that 
to a less degree such records may be taken by the 
present-day historian as documentary evidence on one 
hand, and as representing the advance in mental atti- 
tude on the other. We shall have something to say 
later of the awakening of the critical conscience in the 
South, of the extended attention being given to that 
life of the South which is being based on documentary 
evidence as well as on native feeling. 

No one can ignore Ramsay in the study of South 
Carolina or in the contemplation of early colonial and 
Revolutionary America. From 1801, when he issued 
his "Life of Washington," till his death in 1815, he 
alternated between medicine and history. Born in 
Pennsylvania, educated at Princeton, yet all his inter- 
ests were identified with the South. He delivered many 
orations, wrote on religious topics and was foremost 
in philanthropic and social schemes. 



154 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

And, even as Ramsay in the practice of the his- 
torical method, so WilHam Henry Drayton drew upon 
experience — a full life of rapidly shifting responsibility 
from 1 742- 1 779. Both he and Ramsay were pam- 
phleteers; they were in like sense gatherers of histor- 
ical data, recorders of personal impressions, utterers of 
personal opinion — which constitute only one part of the 
historian's duty. Drayton and his son, John, rose to 
high office in their native State, and the latter it was 
who made use of his father's papers in a book on the 
Revolution in South Carolina. Once more, in this 
matter of the historian in the early South, we find pub- 
lic life ascendant over the life of letters. Men were 
pamphleteers because it was all essential to be so ; they 
were orators because the people required direct ap- 
peal ; they were letter writers because no other means so 
convenient were known by which they could convey 
ideas, — a difficulty, later, partly surmounted by the 
widespread reporting of the modern newspaper. The 
times required statesmen, for only by such may a nation 
be permanently established. Literature was secondary 
in the South during Revolutionary days. I am omit- 
ting extended reference to Wirt here, for the reason 
that his attitude in " The British Spy " was outside 
the war spirit, was indeed created with an art perspec- 
tive more nearly akin to Irving in its artistic impulse. 
It is not strange, therefore, in reaching the last form 
of expression — poetry — to find the songs and ballads 
saturated with the fire of the moment, popular with 
the ring of determination, — a poetry which jingles, 
snaps, bites, but does not lilt. 



Ill 

It is difficult to find Southern characteristics in the 
poetry of this period; the Civil War was productive 
of more real sectional feeling and musical fervor, 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 155 

wherever the poet dealt with purely local sentiment; 
but in the American nation, the national or the sec- 
tional verse has never been of high quality, yet not- 
withstanding, it has represented intense feeling. In 
the South there was no man to compete in magnitude 
or in originality with Freneau, and as a matter of fact 
there was none in the North. Otherwise, we find the 
same character of verse in both sections — stanzas deal- 
ing distinctly with the revolutionary attitude, and 
naturally epitomizing some local activity. We do not 
find the jinglers in New England penning lines about 
the Belles of Williamsburg, but rather extolling the 
homespun declarations of their own maids. On the 
other hand the poets, North and South, made lively use 
of the universal topics of tea, taxation, and Toryism. 
Both sections confronted a delicate problem of loyal 
sympathies in the face of patriotic enthusiasms ; they 
interchanged meters, parodied the same English ballad 
pieces, as well as parodying themselves. 

Poetry was the means of mental relief; other forms 
had demanded serious thought, weighty wording, but 
here one could be gay, reckless, and grotesquely 
humorous. The feelings ran riot, either in grandiose 
expression of patriotism, burlesque innuendoes, or 
satiric broadsides. The commendable feature of such 
composition is its sincerity, its childlike impulsiveness, 
which, as Moore writes, quoting an authority, ** just 
set . . . poetical lathes a-turning and twisted out bal- 
lads and songs for the good of the cause." The per- 
sonal attitude in the stanzas only served to give these 
crude ballads a more human snap; it made no differ- 
ence whether or not the rhyme endings were correct, 
or whether the separate lines could not stand the test 
of good rhythm; the whole effect was there, repre- 
sented a big impulse ; it was easily memorized, and 
sung to some old and familiar melody. 

The first impression of this type of poetry in the 



156 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

South is had from the pen of two graduates of Wil- 
liam and Mary College, St. George Tucker (1752- 
1828) and Dr. James McClurg (1747- 1825), who, as 
physician, could claim authorship of a treatise on the 
human bile, but who in off hours attem.pted graceful 
turns after the manner of Suckling and Cowley, nor 
was his associate far behind, either in his sentiment 
or in his vers de societe. An attractive phase of 
Southern literature is obtained in the wide contrasts 
existing between vocation and avocation; to one who 
reads " The Belles of Williamsburg," it is difficult 
to reconcile the authorship with the annotator of 
Blackstone. The piece is descriptive of the virtues of 
many damsels whose spirit, beauty, and vivacity have 
sported through the veins of hot youth, and sport still, 
for the qualities of wit, of flashing eye, of well-turned 
tapering form and the like, are elements in Nature's 
eternal scheme of things. So successful were the 
stanzas extolling the rarities of Laura, Aspasia, and 
DeHa that a sequel was soon forthcoming in deference 
to Isidora, Leonella, Brunetta, and Belinda, warm 
in beauty though fantastical in name. The composite 
picture may be seen in one stanza which runs : 

. . . The polished cheek that glows, 
And her's the velvet lip, 
To which the cherry yields its hue, 
Its plumpness and ambrosial dew 
Which even Gods might sip. 

"Virginia Heart of Oaks," penned about the time 
of the repeal of the Stamp Act (1766) and based on a 
sailor's song by Garrick, rings with disquietude; it is 
incongruous in its wording and its simile, but un- 
changeable in its patriotic intention; even in its bom- 
bastic phraseology it is big with large daring. This 
poem, if it may be so called, with its spirit, well-typified 
in the couplet 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 157 

** On our brow while we laurel-crown'd Liberty wear, 
What Englishmen ought we Americans dare" — 

was inspiration for many more of similar meter and 
sentiment. When the Virginian, J. W. Hewlings, 
wrote (1775) his "American Hearts of Oak," he 
must have had by him the Virginia Gazette of May 2, 
1766. 

Already these colonies in their verse could flaunt a 
tradition created on the new land. " Maryland's Re- 
solve" (1774) to prepare for the fray held aloft the 
memory of Calvert. On the one hand, we find ex- 
tant verses on Sullivan Island (1776), a humorous 
jingly account of an "Affair of Honor" (1778) be- 
tween Gen. Robert Howe and Lieut. Gov. Christopher 
Gadsden, which the ambitious muse claimed to be too 
good a story for simple prose, sir ! The swing of the 
lines is thus : 

Quoth H. to G.— 'Sir, please to fire! V 
Quoth G. — * No, pray begin, Sir ; ' 
And truly one must needs admire. 
The temper they were in, sir. 

The campaign in the South was productive of purely 
local verse, dealing with incidents like the " Siege of 
Savannah" (1779) and "Charleston" (1780) and 
"The Battle of King's Mountain" (1780), but 
though of historical bearing, they are not, as Wegelin 
declares, of distinctive Southern tenor. We need but 
note that here, as in the North, there were party songs, 
army songs, ballads and hymns — poems whose humor 
was rough but good-natured, crude but determined 
and healthily reflective of the temper of a roused peo- 
ple. Ladies added their voices to the cause, diffident 
in their apparent forwardness in entering public 
affairs. 

The one piece which has any claim to real value as 
poetry is a tribute to Washington, written by Charles 



158 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Henry Wharton (1779), breathing a deep rever- 
ential love through the eighteenth century formal style. 
No Southern poet had the initiative of Freneau to 
break from thorough artificiality; in fact the verse of 
this section, while true in sentiment, oftentimes limps 
through carelessness. Such was the consuming fault of 
Richard Dabney (1787-1825), the rhythm of whose 
nature was jogged sadly out of tune through opium 
and mint julep. In its poetry, the South showed a 
pretty feeling, but not always the strongest strains of 
her Cavalier bearing. 

A full study of Revolutionary poetry would place 
the South no inferior to the North in productiveness, 
but in no way would a thorough examination change 
the ultimate conclusion made after a cursory glance — • 
that the doggerel was rich in impulse but poor in 
quality. Those interested in the drama might read 
'' Female Patriotism ; or, the Death of Joan d'Arc," 
a play in four acts by John Burk, or the same author's 
drama on " Bunker Hill ; or, the Death of Warren," 
and would advance not further than John Adams's ex- 
clamation after seeing the latter piece : " Sir," he 
blurted out, " my friend General Warren was a scholar 
and a gentleman, but your author has made him a 
bully and blackguard." One might spend consider- 
able time in the analysis of Hugh Henry Bracken- 
ridge's drama in heroic measure, called " The Battle 
of Bunker's Hill," or the same author's tragedy on 
" The Death of General Montgomery at the Siege of 
Quebec," and brush aside the weakness of scenes as 
acted drama, but extol the pure spirit of patriotism in 
its heroic and imitative verse. As the feeling ran, so 
the characterization ran, but the moral object, the 
heroic Intent, the contrast of humor and dignity at 
least point to art expression. Yet here even, we have 
a war drama as we had a war poetry and a war ora- 
tory. In a way, one finds expressed the manners of 



REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 159 

the times, as in Col. Robert Munford's electioneering 
play, " The Candidates," but on the whole the litera- 
ture of this period and of this section was more reflec- 
tive of the general revolutionary spirit than of the 
South. Yet, notwithstanding, from the Southern soil 
and civilization was evolved a political leadership far 
greater than the literature of the time. 



Ill 

ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 



TABLE OF AUTHORS 



I764-I822 




1765- 1825 




I775-I825 




I775-I86I 




1776- 1825 




I777-I852 




1778- 1809 




1779- 1843 




1780- 1843 




1780- 185 I 




1780- 1865 




I782-I850 




1782- 1858 




1784-185 1 




1784-1857 




1786- 1836 




1787- 1825 




1788- 1863 




I789-I847 




I789-I863 




I790-I870 




I79I-I839 




1793- 1863 




1794- i860 




I795-I870 




1797- 1843 




I798-I859 




I798-I866 




I802-I828 




I802-I870 




I805-I895 




1806- 1870 




1806- 1872 




1806- 1873 




1809-1849 




I809-I89I 




I8IO-I870 




I8II-I864 




I8I2-I882 




I8I4-I865 




I8I4-I868 




I8I5-I863 




I8I6-I850 




I8I6-I894 




I8I9-I852 




I820-I898 




1822- 1898 




1823- 1859 


. 


1823- 1862 




1823-1903 




1825- 1893 . 





. William Pinckney . 
Robert Goodloe Harper 
. William Munford . 

George Tucker 
. NiNiAN Pinkney . 
Henry Clay 
. John Shaw . 
Washington Allston 
Francis Scott Key 
. John J. Audubon . 
. George M. Troup . 
John C. Calhoun . 
Thomas Hart Benton 
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 
. William Maxwell . 
. David Crockett . 

Richard Dabney . 
William J. Grayson . 
Richard Henry Wilde . 
James Louis Petigru 
Augustus B. Longstreet . 
Robert Y. Hayne . 
. Sam Houston . 
William C. Preston . 
John PEi>rDLETON Kennedy 
Hugh Swinton Legare . 
^Mirabeau B. Lamar 
Francis Lister Hawks . 
Edward Coate Pinkney . 

George D. Prentice 

Charles E. A. Gayarre . 

William Gilmore Simms . 

William Carruthers 

Matthew F. Maury 

. Edgar Allan Poe . 

Albert "Pike 
Mme. Octavia Le Vert . 
Joseph G. Baldwin 
William Tappan Thompson 
Alexander B. Meek 
George W. Harris 
Johnson Jones Hooper . 
Philip Pendleton Cooke . 
Severn Teackle Wallis . 
. *^ Amelia Welby . 
Henry Root Jackson 
William Henry Trescott . 
James M. Legare 
Thomas R. R. Cobb 
. Charles H. Smith . 
. L. Q. C Lamar . . 



. Maryland 

. Virginia 

. Virginia 

. Virginia 

. Maryland 

. Kentucky 

. Maryland 

South Carolina 

. Maryland 

. Louisiana 

. Georgia 

South Carolina 

North Carolina 

. Virginia 

. Virginia 

. Tennessee 

. Virginia 

South Carolina 

Georgia 

South-Carolina 

Georgia 

South .Carolina 

Texas 

South Carolina 

Maryland 

South Carolina 

. Georgia 

North Carolina 

. . Maryland 

. Kentucky 

. Louisiana 

South Carolina 

. Virginia 

. Virginia 

. Virginia 

. Arkansas 

Alabama 

Alabama 

. Georgia 

Alabama 

Tennessee 

Alabama 

. Virginia 

Maryland 

Maryland 

. Georgia 

South Carolina 

South Carolina 

. Georgia 

Georgia 

. Mississippi 



CHAPTER VII 

SOCIAL FORCES 

The Gentleman of the Black Stock and His 
Culture; His Politics; the Menace of Slav- 
ery; THE Rise of States; the Aristocracy and 
THE " Poor Whites " ; the Era of Agriculture. 



The history of the South is easily divisible into 
periods dominated by particular mental attitudes to- 
ward national questions. It was almost inevitable that, 
having adopted a constitution, sections differing so 
widely in economic practice and in social tradition 
should be suspicious of the unequal favors of a Union, 
whose sympathies as a young nation were more 
quickly concerned with development than with per- 
petuation. 

At the outset of the national period, the South was 
shackled with an institution and with a product, both 
of which required an extension of territory, and both 
of which assisted in the migration which depleted 
Virginia, and opened up the region of the Lower 
South. One must know wherein the difference lay, 
distinguishing the Upper from the Lower South, and 
why it was necessary for the latter to procure and to 
maintain at all hazards ascendency in the legislative 
body at Washington. 

The migration of which we speak resulted in the 
beginning of that spirit which now comprises such a 
hopeful aspect in the present South. The trend of 
democratization is to be traced toward the southwest; 

163 



i64 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

there arose upon the plantations of the cotton belt a 
compact upper class, which did not possess the tide- 
water prejudice against allowing other than the 
" first families " to participate in the affairs of state. 
But this shifting of attitude in the Lower South only 
made room for another compact body of a different 
order — a dominant slave-owning minority which com- 
pletely overshadowed and overruled the non-slave- 
holding population. 

Slavery and agriculture, likewise, in their demand 
for more territory, necessitated negotiation and con- 
flict with the French and the Spanish and the Indians. 
There was also the local economic situation regard- 
ing the cultivation of cotton and its increase through 
slave labor, which involved national diplomacy and 
political calculation. 

The Federal party, so it is said, passed away because 
it was unable to adapt itself to new conditions; its 
purpose was to establish a constitution, and it did 
what it set out to do. The group of Southerners who 
were instrumental in framing national law, as well as 
the laws of their native states, closed an era which 
has here been designated as the Revolutionary Period, 
because the national idea was born in revolution. 
Immediately, these same men entertained new ideas 
of construing what had been constructed; it is there- 
fore an almost impossible operation to draw definite 
lines separating the Southern Revolutionary author 
from the author of the national period. One can but 
view the periods in terms of the dominant problems 
with which the people were concerned. Until the out- 
break of the Civil War, the Southern mind passed 
from strict construction to a construction based en- 
tirely upon protection of an institution which, part of 
the web and woof of the social fabric, was at the same 
time its curse, its protection, and its economic creed. 
Slavery and cotton were at the bottom of tariff dis- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 165 

quietude; they accentuated the unequal legislation 
which brought about the defiant South Carolina policy 
of Nullification; and the irritation of attacks from 
the outside awakened a further view of constitutional 
construction leading to states' rights, and to the 
eventual arguments in favor of secession. So closely 
do slavery and cotton bind together every mental atti- 
tude of the Southern people from 1800 until 1854, 
that it is well to embrace the elements in one ante- 
bellum consideration. Freedom of thought was sim- 
ply the right to acknowledge the necessity of thinking 
for the defense of slavery. Sectional feeling only ac- 
centuated sectional peculiarities, and these in turn col- 
ored the literature of all genres. The pulpit was in- 
volved, the school, the press — all culture reaped the 
narrowing effects of slavery and cotton. Social forces, 
affecting the mind and character of the Southern peo- 
ple, measure the philosophic, intensive view of life as 
reflected in the written record. 

The geographical distribution of the Southern peo~ 
pie is fairly well marked in the dialect peculiarities 
which distinguish states and even sections of states; 
one might analyze the distinctive pronunciations of 
regions, in the manner of Dr. Primer, and be able 
thus to determine the constituent parts, the character- 
istic make-up, of the streams of emigrants in their 
pioneer trail across the Appalachian, down the Mis- 
sissippi Valley from Tennessee and Kentucky, and 
into Texas. Adopting a literary method, based on an 
acquaintance with historical fact, one might follow 
Mr. Brown's intensive and at the same time human 
policy of taking types of men as indicating the value 
of stock and the qualities of inheritance. He speaks 
of "men of the physical mold" of Andrew Jackson 
and John C. Calhoun — the Scotch-Irish contribution 
to American history; of Western energy and idea, 
plus Southern charm, as seen in Clay. Such state- 



i66 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ments, while easily made, in this case represent a cer- 
tain close-hand knowledge of the South from within 
the civilization, which, until recent years, has been a 
rare phenomenon among the critics of the South. 

If one should take state by state and study the 
dominant peculiarities of speech and temperament, his- 
torical reasons could be furnished for every social, 
political, and economic point of view actuating the 
pioneer in his westward and southwestward march 
from Virginia after the Revolution. Virginia and 
South Carolina, ranged on the side of aristocracy, are 
balanced by North Carolina and Georgia, poorer and 
more democratic. The aristocratic English tradition, 
pushing through the mountains into Alabama, reached 
the Gulf, and, as Professor Trent has pointed out, 
planted an aristocracy in Mobile and New Orleans — 
he might have added as regards the latter, a distinct 
life within the Southern life, for the French and 
Spanish influences are still evident, and are not wholly 
absorbed. 

The time had now come when Virginia, having con- 
tributed to the Lower South, was to turn toward that 
section as the chief market for its slave labor. Over 
the mountains, pioneers carried their English traits 
and a certain prejudice toward slavery which found 
such pronounced utterance in 1832, when the Virginia 
legislature debated so energetically the way to rid 
the state of its curse. Virginia might have withstood 
its weakness through constant drain had it responded 
to the economic creed. Therein lay the policy 
of South Carolina, more dogmatically aristocratic, 
and more unlikely to accept the democracy which in- 
creased with the increase in popularity of Jackson after 
the War of 1812 and the Seminole conflicts, the lat- 
ter of which freed the Florida territory from the 
grip of the Spaniard. But South Carolina, overrun 
by the negro, rose upon the tide of feeling which 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 167 

looked toward slave labor to supply cotton for the 
newly invented gin, which, in 1793, emanated from 
the mind of Eli Whitney, a Yankee, who was visiting 
Savannah, 

Thus, another stream from Georgia, westward 
through the black belt, is to be noted, as well as one 
from North Carolina, westward into Tennessee. As 
slavery modified character, so we shall find the moun- 
tains giving a certain touch of democracy, akin to law- 
lessness, but with a certain unwritten code of justice. 
Yet, as seen in the stories of Charles Egbert Crad- 
dock and John Fox, the unfailing pride — whether 
Scotch-Irish or not — which wells up in the Cum- 
berland Valley, is a fact, however anomalous it 
may be. The truth is that Southern democracy in 
principle, rather than in political or party differences, 
became a slave party just as soon as slavery became 
the large political issue. 

Ingle writes: "What the South was to be terri- 
torially had been determined in 1836.'* This state- 
ment involves much historical activity, embracing the 
opening of the Louisiana territory and Florida, be- 
sides indicating the necessity of disentangling the 
Southwest from foreign control. But more than that, 
by 1836, the sectional differences had also become fully 
determined. The opening of the Mississippi River, 
the questions of tariff and internal improvement, the 
consideration of a congressional balance which was 
necessary, inasmuch as the South was forced to as- 
sume the defensive — these sec'tional interests enlisted 
the political talent as well as colored the literary senti- 
ment. 

For the first time in the literature of the South, 
there appears a conscious recognition of sectional pecu- 
liarities, the use of local character, of local experience, 
and of pride in local endeavor. While the critical acu- 
men of Wirt's " Letters of the British Spy " exceeds 



i68 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

that of Alexander B. Meek's " Romantic Passages in 
Southwestern History," it nevertheless marks a cer- 
tain intellectual habit of Southern writers which might 
have been rare had it not become pledged in directions 
requiring laudation and flowery eloquence, rather than 
discriminating judgment. In this respect, Wirt was 
nearer the Revolution — more national than ante-bel- 
lum, yet withal possessed of poetic feeling, and full of 
sentiment, rather than sentimental. 

The local sense was born directly of the soil, perhaps 
striking because of the very marked outward idiosyn- 
crasies which did not so utterly involve the soul as 
did the New England conscience. The Southern mind 
assumed almost a unified attitude toward Southern 
qualities, a formal code of expression in dealing with 
moral questions. Because of the narrow richness of 
his life, the writer within the South became slave of 
his excellent bequeathment. Barring a few examples, 
the most noteworthy being Simms, authorship was an 
accomplishment rather than a profession ; it was sec- 
ondary to the larger field of politics. That is why one 
finds long discursive passages in the novels of the 
early period — romances now grouped in a genre 
spoken of as old-fashioned ; there was no balance in 
the use of life and romance; it had either to be one 
or the other. The romantic formula exacted a rigid 
adherence to prescribed rules or conventions of man- 
hood and womanhood, which were interpreted as in- 
violable symbols of life. 

Hence it is that characterization became statuesque, 
action painfully melodramatic, and social consider- 
ation oratorical. Let the writer touch upon a point in 
Southern life, and he was willing to halt his story so 
as to debate the question and settle it at once accord- 
ing to his personal point of view. There was no 
justice done to his characters ; they must obey his code 
of honor, they must hold his convictions. Otherwise, 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 169 

they must act in the manner of Scott's heroes and ful- 
fill the destinies of Hannah More's heroines. 

It is very true that the course of events forced the 
Southern writer into a position of actually deceiving 
himself. He loved his life ; the very paternalism of the 
fields became the part of him which was bequeathed to 
the next generation. But his sensitiveness was con- 
fession of a weakness in that life which he dared not 
whisper to himself, much less utter in his literature; 
upon his confidence rested the equilibrium of his civil- 
ization. So he argued, even though large numbers 
of his associates, in legislature, in De Bow, and else- 
where, expressed disbelief in the advantages of 
slavery. 

The culture of the South in this period is more than 
ever dependent upon social forces in the life. Politi- 
cal unrest was everywhere further aggravated by an 
observational criticism, passed upon the civilization 
from without by those avowedly inimical to the eco- 
nomic system. In Governor Hammond's pro-slavery 
argument, he refers to Miss Martineau's Boccaccio 
pen; his attitude was that the Southerners would not 
dare broach certain subjects — a statement which 
marks a distinct dissociation of morality from social 
condition. Southern literature sounds two persistent 
notes during this time — political aggressiveness and 
sectional pride. 

One has, moreover, to examine into another liter- 
ature of bulky proportion, but none the less essential 
to an understanding of the South. In a criticism of 
Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom, Mr. Allen truly states that 
the South did not object to the character per se, but 
to " the category of events " that befell the character. 
It is exactly in this respect that the English and North- 
ern travelers who went through the South were unfair 
to the total value of that life; they possessed neither 
time nor desire to estimate the people in terms of 



170 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

other than the worse conditions which came under 
their observation. 

The Southern critic has justly protested against an 
overmarked confidence in details gathered by the 
stranger, and shorn of all sympathetic insight into 
any of the rich results emanating from such a civiliza- 
tion. Rhodes, the historian, starting out in the cus- 
tomary fault-commenting vein, was forced, through 
the exceptional fairness of his historical sense, to off- 
set arraignment with justification. The early critic 
of slavery was extravagant, and so was the defender. 
They were both culpable in the same way, though not 
as rabid as the abolitionist and fire-eater, whom Mr. 
Brown distinguished, one from the other, in the terse 
statement that the former would have sacrificed the 
Union to free the slave, while the latter would have 
sacrificed the Union rather than see the slave free. 
The Northerner approached the problem abstractly; 
the Southerner looked upon the immediate fact. The 
masterfulness of the white was essential if the section 
was to advance with other sections. South Carolina, 
then as now, saw the ascendent race in the minority 
as far as numbers were concerned. 

And so we may apply Mr. Allen's statement to more 
than Mrs. Stowe's book — to Fannie Kemble's *' Jour- 
nal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838- 
1839," agreeable with a certain languid tone and feel- 
ing response to the beauty of scene ; to Frederick Law 
Olmsted's rambling travels; and to J. Elliot Cairnes' 
consideration of "The Slave Power," and the laws 
governing it. The student cannot disregard these 
books; they are rich with unsystematized material, or 
rather with detail arranged according to a one-sided 
argument. Olmsted's narratives, leisurely gathered, 
and agreeably written in journalistic fashion, are data 
placed for the purpose of conviction; they never as- 
sume the impersonal because, as a scientific agricul- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 171 

turist, as an enemy to slave labor, he was continually 
challenging. One does not have to go far in the 
numberless books to realize that the aristocratic life, 
overworked in romance and biography, was not of 
as much importance to Olmsted, as the poorer classes 
whom Helper appealed to when he wrote his " Im- 
pending Crisis." 

Professor Trent's view Is thoroughly sound when 
he suggests that Olmsted is valuable to-day in meas- 
uring the progress of the New South, for the very 
reason that the plain man is coming to mean some- 
thing more to the South in its social, political, and 
economic awakening. The plain man is likewise a 
part of Southern literature. 

We are not expected to argue again the case of slav- 
ery; that it has ceased is an incontrovertible fact for 
which the South is thankful; we must approach the 
records to extract therefrom the influence such an in- 
stitution, such a life, had upon the mental activity of 
the people. Olmsted did not carry with him to the 
South a broad knowledge of the South; he was recep- 
tive and paid small heed to the activity within the 
South, along the lines of systematized agriculture, so 
earnestly exerted by Lieutenant Maury, so zealously 
suggested in the face of his support of slavery by De 
Bow, so pledged to pioneer experiment by Ruffin. 

The student is just beginning to understand the 
part played by the poor w^hite in the ante-bellum 
South; that he was overshadowed is largely due to 
the importance of the landed gentry in the whole eco- 
nomic machinery which slavery raised and strength- 
ened. The mental attitude of the Gentleman of the 
Black Stock, his culture, his tradition, his rights, were 
not challenged because cotton was king. The irrita- 
tion, the vehement logic that carried by force of its 
rhetoric, the old-world dignity, the warm protect- 
ing condescension of his manner, stamped the type, 



172 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

molded by forces which he realized and was strug- 
gling to conserve. But he felt the inevitable restless- 
ness which results from fear of going forward lest 
the old charm be sacrificed. He would incommode 
himself rather than relinquish a superfluous manner 
which was useless, and which the laws of progress 
claimed to be waste of time and energy. It was thus 
that his thought assumed an aspect as formal as his 
person; they were both forceful, magnetic, pictur- 
esque, but of the old order, and pledged to the old 
order. 

While the chief charm of the Old Gentleman of 
the Black Stock rests in his romantic possibilities, well- 
nigh overworked in a conventional sentiment by Mr. 
Page in his novel bearing that name, he was at the 
same time an economic factor, inasmuch as upon him 
fell the responsibilities and the results of the agricul- 
tural life. Indeed, in his use of the term " Southern 
People,'' as applied to the population before the war, 
Mr. Page draws this distinction; for he claims that a 
Southern literature could have come from no other 
class than that which supported the slave-holding in- 
terests ; nothing was to be expected of the poor white, 
much less of the negro. 

The old-time courtesy was born of the gentry habits 
of home life ; the paternal position the " Old Gentle- 
man " was placed in by the presence of the slave, de- 
veloped his power of self-control, and accentuated a 
decisiveness which was hardly amenable to the rea- 
soning of others, and which, held patiently in leash, 
might be interpreted as condescension. He advanced 
with his head turned longingly to the past. Every- 
where, life exhibits that strong love for what has been, 
and in the South this was longest in ruling the mind, 
because a conservative society, especially a homogene- 
ous group which has not been molded from widely 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 173 

divergent stock, did not recognize or give heed to 
progress apart from its sectional demands. The phi- 
losophic views of the statesmen who built the nation 
were no longer possible. 

The Gentleman of the Black Stock was generally a 
lawyer; if his prominence won him large political 
honors, he was compared with his predecessors at 
the bar, — Randolph, Marshall, even Henry. He was 
as consumed with the fire of legal ingenuity and en- 
ergy, as the modern business man is with Wall Street. 
And to his credit it must be said that in his reach for 
high posts, his civic sense was stronger than his realiza- 
tion of personal benefits. His rectitude, his high seri- 
ousness whenever his mind was engaged in affairs of 
moment, are indication of what Southern literature 
might have been, had it not been overruled by a pro- 
fession which genius seemed particularly to have 
favored. 

In his literature, the. Gentleman of the Black Stock 
reveled leisurely; his tastes were inherited with the 
library of previous generations. Early in life, he lisped 
the letters from his Plutarch, and toward the close 
of his life he might have been persuaded to open 
Wordsworth, perhaps because of the poet's associative 
faculty and religious conservatism. 

Now, what was his mental attitude toward the 
humanities? He believed in leisure for the exercise 
of thought, and he was firm in the conviction that 
through slavery, which in addition to its being " natu- 
rally, morally and politically right and beneficial," like- 
wise " saved the planter from the necessity of labor," 
the section would be led to opulence, and the arts and 
sciences would naturally follow. He adopted a pro- 
nounced classic cultivation of letters; he spoke of his- 
tory as the preserving page; he applied to the pen of 
Livy a picturesque term, " luminous/' which critically 



174 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

might mean anything, but which to him meant aphor- 
istic wisdom inherited from Solon. In his imagina- 
tion he could not conceive of the plastic nature of 
literature ; he could not accept the evanescent value of 
news. The times should be improved in accordance 
with ancient example; a classical foundation was es- 
sential because of the wisdom it reflected; the future 
was to be regulated by the past; reestablishment was 
more to be sought after than innovation. 

In an address before the Erosophic Society of the 
University of Alabama, delivered as early as Decem- 
ber 7, 1839, Meek, in his plea for intellectual activity, 
gave to the students this sophistry: "In proportion 
as individuals of different qualities enter into the com- 
position of society, — so it becomes, in its general tone, 
less pure and elevated." And yet, though every 
speaker in the South lauded the " peculiar institution," 
they were beginning to see that the agricultural char- 
acter of their lives was not entirely idyllic for the 
fostering of the fine arts, despite the fact that they 
pointed to ancient examples of primal originality, 
springing from soil opulent under slave rule. To the 
Gentleman of the Black Stock there was only one large 
factor preventing the full enjoyment of national ad- 
vancement, and that was governmental discrimination 
in favor of a section not agricultural. He was only 
partially right. 

Meek held such opinions, yet he also placed himself 
in an anomalous position when he claimed for the 
" humble and industrious " dotting the " neighbor- 
hood roads," the camp meetings and county court, 
some share in the awakening he invoked from the 
students of Alabama. The Southerner at such mo- 
ments of appeal fell into vacuous expressions which 
gilded the lily but weakened the force of his argu- 
ment, and often ignored the statement of ways and 
means by which the accomplishment might be reached. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 175 

II 

In defining" the term romance, the Southern writer 
confounded two traits of the material used by him; 
recognizing the fact that the incidents, the actions, 
the emotions employed were of a peculiar character, 
he also was aware that their veracity was always 
doubted. He possessed a certain desire to establish 
the realistic existence of his data, but he sacrificed any 
claim to truth that romance might have, by the illogical, 
violent ordering of his story, and by the emotional 
verboseness of his style. His analytical insight was 
not as personal as the power he displayed of self- 
expression. 

The permanence of culture was his much-coveted 
ideal, but it was a culture based on class distinction 
and on social opportunity, through which flowed no 
strength of new blood. Utilitarian practice was 
thought to tarnish his higher accomplishments, nor 
could he express his ideas tersely, inasmuch as his 
reading public had been trained in a school of rounded 
sentences and effulgent adjectives. He was not nec- 
essarily self-deceived; it was due to his traditions that 
his speech became over-exaggerated, a quixotic exal- 
tation of common things. This may have added 
charm to the manners of the Gentleman of the Black 
Stock, but it grew wearisome in his literature. His 
thought was often direct, his expression mostly oblique 
and long-winded. 

The attendant circumstances of slavery fostered 
Southern punctiliousness of conversation. Meek 
claims for the " Southron" "a spirit of superiority"; 
his speech was necessarily a measure of this position; 
his " self-esteem " g-ave unshakable confidence to his 
assertion; his ** aristocratic feeling" at once limited 
his view ; his " chivalry of character " accentuated his 
honesty of purpose, more simple than calculating. 



176 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Because of the unpractical and decorative accom- 
plishment of literature, Southerners placed small value 
upon it as a profession; the reason probably was to 
be found in the facts that there were no large centers, 
no literary circles outside of Simms, and no publishing 
impetus save in the North. But concentration, ac- 
cording to the critics of the day, would not have bet- 
tered the situation in the South; Irving and Cooper 
and those who came after were as strong in their 
cry against the domination of English books, to the 
detriment of American literature generally, as later 
the South became, in its opposition to Northern 
monopoly, especially in the case of schoolbooks. 

It was this justified unrest as to the state of Amer- 
ican letters, which prompted both Meek and Simms to 
write on the subject; but there was, in addition, that 
ever-present historical sense in the Southerner, which 
developed in him the desire to know his country and 
to make use of its romance and luxuriance. Simms 
believed in a compact minority ; he even went further 
than Meek in his dislike of shifting population; he 
considered it a drawback to the development of any 
national characteristics to wander, to become cos- 
mopolitan, to mix with foreign stock; he saw the 
result to be a " moral loss '' in which " standards of 
judgment fluctuate, sensibilities become blunted, prin- 
ciples impaired, with increasing insecurity at each 
additional move." This effort to stem what was con- 
sidered a destructive tide of denationalization was 
prompted by the same desire which was evident 
on the part of manufacturers to build up home indus- 
try. English thought versus English woolens! 

The Gentleman of the Black Stock had a vague con- 
ception as to nationalism in literature ; he understood 
that racial habits grew out of racial life; that no one 
nation could live upon the laws of another without 
vital, inherent connection between law and the people 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 177 

to be governed; that the process must be inward ne- 
cessity acted upon by outward condition; that a 
nation's art cannot be superimposed from without 
itself. But yet, his expansive attitude toward a 
national literature gradually narrowed, assuming a 
local aspect, because of the conservative interpretation 
of his idea that "as we adapt our warfare to the 
peculiarities of the country, and our industry to our 
climate ... so the operations of the national 
mind must be suited to our characteristics." The 
much-flaunted and oft-repeated expression, " the genius 
of our people," was applied particularly to a section. 
The Southern historian mostly wrote of Southern 
Revolutionary generals, of Southern colonization ; even 
in his treatment of the Indians, he was not as success- 
ful in creating the typal traits as he was in noting the 
tribal peculiarities. In the latter respect, we may draw 
one of the distinctions between Cooper and Simms. 

The modern conception of history did not develop 
until there was a severance of romance from record. 
It is strange to take the statistics of De Bow and 
measure them in comparison with the sentiment of 
expression accompanying them. Having defined to 
his own satisfaction the distinctive functions of the 
historian and the romancer, Simms claimed for both 
artistic positions, different in degree rather than in 
kind — a philosophic variance that rests upon the sub- 
tle distinction between grandeur and delicacy. But 
whether the one or the other, the American author 
needed to deal with American soil. This catholic 
statement coming from a South Carolinian was ac- 
companied by Southern claims and inclinations. 

But the voice of the Lower South was democratic 
despite this, especially in comparison with the Upper 
South; even in its intellectual outlook it tried to be 
so. One instinctively feels this if, after reading the 
aristocratic "Partisan Leader" of Beverley Tucker, 



178 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

he should pick up Longstreet's "Georgia Scenes" or 
Baldwin's " Flush Times in Alabama." In 1844, 
when Meek again reviewed the discussion of Ameri- 
canism in literature, he had learned that the "quiet 
bowers " and the " turbulent fields " had to have some 
connection if the literature was to be live. If the 
song of the Georgian poet was to be drawn from the 
red hills of Georgia, why might not some Csedmon 
of the fields be worthy to receive the inspiration? The 
Southern gentleman had only a vague idea of de- 
mocracy in literature ; it was little more to him than an 
ideal goal shut out by social discrimination and dis- 
couragement. But there was hope even in the pres- 
ence of a desire like this ; the social organism did not 
provide sufficiently for free schools, and kept under 
an arrested mentality, which is only now beginning to 
stir, but which was once a menace because of inanition. 

" We must have a literature congenial to our institu- 
tions," writes Meek, and as though fearing lest na- 
tional encouragement might lead to national encroach- 
ment, he allowed his political state individualism to 
demand for art, sectional encouragement and national 
protection. Thus, literature becomes a tangible com- 
modity, regulated, encouraged, influenced by patron- 
age, rather than reflecting, as Southern oratory always 
did, the state of mind of which it was the necessary 
expression. He might point with pride to Bancroft 
offsetting Livy, to Prescott offsetting Hume, yet he 
overlooked questioning methods and processes. 

But, while the student of Southern conditions is 
forced to lay stress on all the factors which tended 
to retard the intellectual and practical advancement of 
the South, he has likewise the satisfaction of calling 
attention to those voices within the civilization, and a 
part of the civilization, which had the courage to place 
an unerring emphasis on those very weaknesses which 
were most detrimental to its welfare. Despite the 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 179 

concerted legislation which sought to preserve slavery, 
there was equally as strong a cry raised for its aboli- 
tion; the question that stared the Southerner in the 
face was — how was this to be accomplished? For it 
would mean free labor and a shifting of agricultural 
base, and it would mean the loosening of bonds from 
a large shiftless, ignorant black population whose only 
education — ^and the moral control which comes there- 
from — had been slavery. It was not until much later, 
when the negro's position imposed a deep obligation 
upon the white man, and when education, escaping 
the pronounced denominational cast of early years, 
was extended in popular scope, that the Southerner 
began to realize that the ignorance of a class was the 
one great menace to his civilization. The best thought 
of the South to-day has profited by the narrow results 
of the past. 

The other fault in the South was the degradation 
of labor, a general attitude directly the result of slavery 
— an attitude which made the lowest poor white draw 
back and sink lower because of his refusal to com- 
pete with or to work with the black man. The South- 
erner was not ignorant of the evil which lay in this 
false pride ; he was continually, in legislative halls and 
in print, seeking to do away with this prejudice 
which economically represented a waste and prevented 
him from personally superintending his crop. But the 
yeoman pride has not yet been overcome ; it is a relic 
which education, not poverty and the factory, will 
finally change. 

Between labor and the fine arts there was no inter- 
mediate stage — no effort to see wherein a liberal art 
might affect the practical advancement of the South; 
the want of this spirit made the planter conservative, 
even to the extent of using out-of-date implements in 
the fields, when elsewhere an improved patent was time- 
saving and also more thorough. Hence, during this 



i8o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

period, the Gentleman of the Black Stock, a devotee 
of ancient tongues, regarded askance any suggestion 
that education alone might not be intended for the 
cultivation of the higher faculties, but as well for the 
strengthening of what he was accustomed to term 
" the grosser faculties of the mind." To the South- 
erner, not yet alive to the value of the sociologist's 
point of view, manual training, other than that afforded 
by slavery, was hardly worthy of wide consideration. 
As Meek asserted, " There might be a nation of men 
highly educated upon the utilitarian plan, who would 
all be villains." When one realizes what this posi- 
tion meant in the Southern make-up, the democratic 
spirit assumes insignificant proportions. And while 
it is difficult to see where, in such mental narrowness, 
there was any hope for a Whitman of the future, 
the Southern literary critic has the privilege of com- 
menting upon Lanier's close sympathy with the 
broader life. 

The Southern mind struggled beneath its social limi- 
tation. In 1824, Professor Thomas Cooper, recom- 
mending the study of political economy to the stu- 
dents of South Carolina University, delivered a series 
of lectures on the subject, based on Mrs. Marcet's 
"Conversations." To the latter, which in English 
Hterature represented an interesting break from the 
moral sentimentality begun by Rousseau, Cooper 
added a clear-cut understanding of fundamental prin- 
ciples and a sound, if not broad, learning. When 
his " Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy " 
were published in 1831, his evident desire for free dis- 
cussion, his generous views regarding population — in 
fact, all economic doctrines — were measured in terms 
of the South and slavery. Turning to Adam Smith, 
he emphasized the statement that it was sound policy 
" to leave individuals to pursue their own interests in 
their own way," — a statement which had particular 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD i8i 

appeal for him because the tariff legislation was fore- 
most in his mind. He was narrow in spite of his 
broadness, because he was a Southerner ! By the next 
year, his professional dignity was cast aside in the 
cause of Nullification. From Columbia, S. C, in 1832, 
there emanated anonymously a curious fiction entitled 
" The Memoirs of a Nullifier," of which he was the 
author. Literarily, it is of small value; there is an 
attempt at cartoon portraiture, but with no success in 
characterization; temperamentally it typifies some- 
thing of the Gentleman of the Black Stock's humor, 
born of the immediate occasion. 

The little book, nevertheless, contained no gracious- 
ness; it was more of broadside spirit than of subtle 
sarcasm, in which the Yankee was the peg on which 
to hang wit. It assumed the attitude in the jingles 
of one's childhood, about "What are Httle girls made 
of? — and little boys?" The association of the Devil 
with Henry Clay and Webster emanated from the 
South Carolinian distrust of compromise in national 
issues; the sarcastic framing of a congressional enact- 
ment forcing all schools and houses to buy Noah Web- 
ster's spelling book reflected the many debates as to 
sectional differences and states' rights. The hero, 
having been ruined by a Yankee, Faust-like sells his 
soul to the Devil, and in his adventures meets with 
some of the latter's victims. While Southerners are 
not debarred, they are captive for minor offenses, 
indicating that the states were already marked by local 
distinctions ; the worst a Virginian might do was to fish 
on Sunday, while Kentucky horse-stealing and Georgia 
swearing might be overlooked. But the Carolinian 
who, during the tariff acts of 1832, dared take stand 
with the general government against his State, was 
worthy the worst hell-fire. The acme of sin and wick- 
edness was the Yankee! 

In the midst of these diverse elements, marked in 



i82 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

1832 by Virginia's efforts to rid herself of slavery, 
and by South Carolina's fiery pronouncement of her 
policy of Nullification, the Gentleman of the Black 
Stock read his journals and magazines, and took part 
in debates which widened the sectional breach. " H 
slavery can be eradicated," cried Charles James Faulk- 
ner of Virginia, *' in God's name, let us get rid of it." 
At that moment, Virginia would have been glad of 
Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, at the risk of 
negro insurrection ; the white man's indolence was due 
to the presence of the slave — or shall we say rather 
to the absence of the artisan? — an absence which de- 
noted the sacrifice of most Southern interests for 
the sake of one. On the other hand. Dr. Cooper 
was debating against "the manifest encroachments 
of the general government." The tone of the states- 
man was aggressive, betokening a restiveness, a per- 
sonal dissatisfaction beneath. Hence his energies 
were all the more concerned, being placed on the de- 
fensive with a determination to protect his constitu- 
tional rights and to preserve his civilization. 

Southern magazine literature was materially im- 
pressed by the mental conservatismi of the times; 
there was a solidity about it as oppressive as the an- 
cient store of learning, which constituted ante-bellum 
culture; it was speculative in abstruse detail, it was 
descriptive of unusual foreign travel, and its philos- 
ophy considered ancient law and order. In the one 
topic by which it could make direct appeal to the 
Southern people, it was obscured beneath the imme- 
diate and more brilliant fire of legislative debate on 
the same topic. Besides which, except in a limited 
manner, the Southerner never figured as a purchaser 
of books. This is one of the reasons why Southern 
magazines had to struggle for existence, and never 
survived ; but another reason goes further and deeper : 
Southern people have never looked to their authors 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 183 

to represent them in any direction. The time will 
come, and is indeed foreshadowed, when from the 
utilization in literature of Southern tradition, too 
valuable to forget, will grow the message of the 
South as coming from herself. Miss Glasgow has 
touched the border of such a valuable method, but so 
far, no one in fiction has sounded the vital chord 
which Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy has sounded in 
his sane, practical exposition of Southern activities 
and of Southern policies, from the standpoint of 
Southern initiative. 

Because letters had no official position in the life 
of the Gentleman of the Black Stock, because he was 
in the habit of reading either English or Northern 
books rather than his own. The Southern Review, The 
Literary Messenger, and others shared a similar fate, 
due to causes which shall receive separate treatment, 
but likewise illustrating another evil of agricultural 
life, regulated in the interests of slavery. Meek looked 
toward the rehabilitation of the fine arts through con- 
certed governmental action — a view which he held 
despite his belonging "to the straitest sect of our Po- 
litical Pharisees." In his arguments against Jack 
Cadeism, he turned to Congress, which was in 1841 
debating the future fate of the Smithsonian Institution, 
endowed through foreign bequeathment. Once more 
the Southern mind believed that a university, as a 
means of cultivation, could dominate a social condi- 
tion, and stand aloof as guardian of a petted rather 
than of an essential art. 

Ill 

iThe Southern Literary Messenger was founded in 
1834 ; De Bow's Commercial Review in 1846 ; one is 
tempted to claim that literarily and economically these 
two journals represent fairly well the ante-bellum 
South, but the material is either too scattered or too 



i84 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ponderous for convenient use. Some discerning" li- 
brarian of the South, actuated by the great enthu- 
siasm of Dr. Thomas M. Owen of Alabama, whose 
bibliographical researches are excellent and thorough, 
should systematize this wealth of data by making 
an index practicable. Ingle, in " Southern Side- 
lights," has with earnest endeavors compressed much 
of these statistics in a handy volume. De Bow, in 
" The Industrial Resources of the South," has sum- 
marized a considerable amount of information, while 
Minor, in a narrative amounting to a confused cata- 
loguing of titles, has traced the history of the Mes- 
senger. Still, the rich material is as yet inaccessible. 

But certain it is that the student of Southern con- 
ditions must resort to these two magazines as typi- 
fying the mental attitude and the outward state of the 
South — both under the spell of slavery. While, as mere 
foreign impressions, Tyrone Power (1833), Trol- 
lope (1827), Harriet Martineau (1834), De Toc- 
queville (1831) and other travelers, who wrote vol- 
umes based on hearsay and observation, are entitled 
to consideration as testimony against a peculiar so- 
cial institution, the activity emanating from the people 
themselves must be weighed, — an activity which strove 
to establish a commercial independence in the South — 
not, said Albert Pike in the Charleston Convention 
of 1854, "by tearing the national flag asunder, and 
breaking up the glorious union of the States, but inde- 
pendent as God in His providence intended we should 
be, when He conferred upon the South all the natural 
advantages she possesses." 

The reports in De Bow describing these Southern 
conventions which dealt with the topics of naviga- 
tion, transportation, and public roads, illustrate the 
social unrest of the Southern people. The meetings in 
Macon, Augusta and Memphis between 1837 and 
1845 sounded every aggravated point which marked 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 185 

governmental discrimination, and accentuated sec- 
tional difference. The Union was certainly not anx- 
ious to appease the Southerner, did not immediately 
hasten to secure the navigation of the Mississippi, did 
not encourage the commercial importance of South- 
ern ports, or recognize, as many would have de- 
sired, the naval strategic value of the Southern 
coast. With no incentive, therefore, save that which 
came from within itself, with hope in the 
West, a section which — like the South— accused the 
Government of neglecting its interests also, the South 
was thrust into the position of protecting its char- 
acteristic employment, which needed no governmental 
protection, but which showed resentment against out- 
side interference. The development of sectional feel- 
ing is in no way better measured than by comparing 
the spirit of the convention held in Savannah (1857), 
with that held in Macon (1845). The change notice- 
able is not unlike that in Calhoun, who typifies its 
extreme form. 

Consider for a moment the suspicion in the 
Southern mind, created by Northern energy directed 
against all that constituted Southern business. This 
suspicion attributed Northern prosperity to slavery, 
and claimed that the South was being retarded simply 
that the neighbor might flourish. What would hap- 
pen, the planter exclaimed, should slavery be imme- 
diately abolished ? New England would go bankrupt, 
and English mills go empty. Yancey, when he saw 
the wharves of Boston crowded with cotton bales, no 
longer wondered at Northern prosperity, while the 
Southerners, in convention assembled, strove earnestly 
to establish a direct line of communication between 
Liverpool and Southern ports. The South smarted 
under neglect, claiming that if it lacked luxuries, and 
savoir vivre, if it were wanting " in associated indus- 
try, in energy, and in seaport cities," it v/as because 



i86 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

in the North alone, enterprise was being stimulated 
" by the outpouring of revenue." 

This grievance was not wholly devoid of the 
South's recognition of those vital forces which made 
the North quickly respond to and profit by the money 
thus spent; public spirit and enterprise, no less than 
associated labor and capital, were not as strongly 
developed in the South. But, in the other scale as 
balance, thei men of the slave states turned to the 
gentle aspects of their sectional life — the refined qui- 
escence of the rural community. Said Forsyth, " The 
South . . . claims equality, if not precedence, in the 
republic of morals and intellect, in freedom from 
crime, in freedom from pauperism, and from that 
most fearful of God's judgments on man, and the 
immediate fruit of pauperism and crime — insan- 
ity,'' 

In condensed form, here is the essence of more 
than half the arguments in favor of slavery — points 
that are strongest links in the armor of the Southern- 
er's defense. But such arguments have now ceased to 
have significance, save as they intensify the portrait 
of the Gentleman of the Black Stock. The South is 
freed of slavery, has profited by terrible experience, 
and has suffered the drawbacks of an institution that 
held in abeyance the full freedom of the white. The 
South has, as Alderman says, experienced the educative 
force of defeat, and would hardly hold to-day, think- 
ing as It does, that its slave arguments were logical, 
even though they might have been necessary. 

For half a century, the Gentleman of the Black 
Stock did not change ; he intensified. His bitter dis- 
like of the abolitionists in the North obscured any 
charity he might have had toward the Yankees, had 
abolition not existed, or had it been content to work 
within the limits of its own territory. Moral enthu- 
siasm is self-consuming; it is as unreasonable in its 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 187 

demands and means, as the spirit of persistent opposi- 
tion it begets. If the Southerner regarded the abo- 
litionist as a maHgnant hater of all that constituted 
his life, and as one who on all occasions strove to mis- 
represent the South and to incite the slaves, it was 
only natural that teachers, preachers, merchants and 
drummers — termed alike Yankees — should soon come 
under popular aversion. 

The North showed no willingness to arbitrate, and 
the South fast reached that view where arbitration 
would have been refused had it been offered. But 
the Gentleman of the Black Stock, in his appeal to 
the South for unification in sectional action, revealed 
wherein there was unrest and doubt within the South, 
as to the inviolable rights of slavery to exist. In 
fact, the more tenable position of states' rights was 
at first overclouded and somewhat tainted by the 
monotonous arguments hurled in favor of slavery, 
more impassioned than true. 

Therefore, if they were to take an extreme posi- 
tion, the Southerners saw clearly that they must not 
patronize the North ; that they must not employ 
Northern teachers or Northern mechanics. These 
must come from the South. The clan spirit was apos- 
trophized; one writer in his appeal cried: "Is the 
spirit of the Habershams, the Mclntoshes, the Tat- 
nalls, the Troups, and all that gallant host, whose 
name is legion, extinct?" 

The Southerners expended much energy in repeat- 
ing weakly what some of their best men had said 
ably ; their speeches, dissertations, reviews, are all ver- 
bose, and far from resembling that remarkable ex- 
ample of the one man from Mississippi, who in assem- 
bly begged to be heard, inasmuch as his speech was 
only forty-six words long. They argued in a circle; 
they could not break from the chain that held them, 
though they might shift their position. 



/ 



i88 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

They therefore examined the state attitude toward 
popular education as their most progressive outlet, 
and began recommending instruction for the masses; 
the aristocratic feeling sought to recognize common 
humanity. Still, even here, the Southerner miscal- 
culated. Trescott, of South Carolina, failed to dis- 
cover the restless spirit among the people, because he 
failed to give proper position to the middle class 
which was so strong in New England. ^' Fortunately 
for us," he wrote, "our institutions are free from 
this fundamental difficulty [of possible revolution]. 
The great mass of coarse and unintellectual labor 
which the necessities of the country require, is per- 
formed by a race not only especially fitted for its per- 
formance, but especially unfitted and disqualified for 
that mental improvement which is generally under- 
stood by the term education." 

This very statement, especially in the logical weak- 
ness of its latter part, is indicative of the false cul- 
ture of the Southerner, a culture that could not iden- 
tify the mind with the soil. He was likewise inclined 
to juggle with terms, to speak of slavery as an insti- 
tution rather than an investment, and hence as being 
removed from the immediate necessity of overwork in 
order to obtain proper returns on employed capital; 
even his scheme for education became pledged to 
slavery. He argued that the State was not bound to 
provide learning " for the bulk of the laboring class," 
but that it was of the utmost importance to the State 
that every white citizen should be sufficiently educated 
to " enable him intelligently and actively to control 
and direct the slave labor of the State." Apart from 
this, Trescott voiced the South in his firm belief that 
abstract studies, the finer and more delicate types of 
literature, would come in the wake of wealth and 
leisure. The identification of labor with the black 
alone — a labor requiring no inventiveness, but only 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 189 

strict obedience — was a curse which added another 
false element to the interpretation of Southern aris- 
tocracy. 

There is small doubt of the existence in the South 
of a strong feeling that culture, save that which came 
from the habits and manners of social intercourse, was 
not as immediate in importance as cotton, sugar-cane, 
and negroes ; instructors were not regarded with that 
high deference which only comes where the commu- 
nity believes strongly in the old adage, " Knowledge 
is power." In fact, the sectarian establishments of the 
Lower South, many of them more intent on religious 
wrangling than on practical instruction, constituted the 
larger part of the school system. The clergy, therefore, 
was left chiefly in control of instruction; outside of 
this body, the Southerners did not object to anyone 
turning his hand to teaching, notwithstanding the 
fact he might be wholly untrained for the purpose. 
What they were most particular about, however, was 
to prevent the schools from using books inimical to 
their social and their agricultural institutions. 

The Gentleman of the Black Stock was thoroughly 
convinced that the South was irretrievably different 
from the North, — in " life, habits, thoughts, and 
aims " ; he was indignant over the fact that South- 
ern booksellers were in a *' state of peonage " to the 
" barons of Cliff-Street," who merely " manufac- 
tured " schoolbooks, disregarding the requirements of 
the different sections. The only constant factor in 
education for the whole country rested in the classics ; 
the Southerner granted the universality in Greek and 
Latin; but history and geography, and all references 
relating to climate, productions, politics, and society, 
demanded modification in the light of sectional inter- 
ests. " What is to be done with geographies," asks 
a writer in De Bow, " that tell pupils * states are 
divided into towns and counties^? as if, out of New 



I90 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

England, the use of town, as synonymous with parish, 
district, or township, was usual ; that devote two pages 
to Connecticut onions and broom corn, and ten lines 
to Louisiana and sugar ? of histories that are silent 
about Texas? of first readers that declare all spelling 
but Noah Webster's * vulgar ' and ' not used in good 
society'? and of * speakers' that abound in selections 
for Southern declamation, made almost exclusively 
from Northern debates in Congress, and from aboli- 
tion poets ? " 

While it was the general belief that both brain and 
hands should be called into service, it was only in the 
interests of the South that they should be trained. 
" Give us," cried the Honorable Gentleman from 
Louisiana, " such excellent examples of schoolbooks 
as Fitzhugh's * Sociology for the South.' " On the 
other hand, the Gentleman of the Black Stock pointed 
to Calhoun as a believer in Southern education for 
Southern people, a sentiment uttered in a different 
manner, but with as much political significance, by 
Jefferson at an earlier period. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE VOICE OF THE OLD SOUTH 

Being a Consideration of the Literary Claims 
OF Orators — Typified in Calhoun, Clay, and 
Hayne. 

In " Letters of the British Spy," Wirt deplores the 
preponderance of volubility over eloquence in national 
and state legislatures. There is no doubt that, literarily, 
the majority of speeches are not only repetition, but 
discursive without strength ; they are either dependent 
upon their intrinsic weight, which is in turn dependent 
upon the individual force of the statesman, or else 
they fall into one of the three divisions which Wirt 
designated as being the defects of American oratory. 
Many of the speeches were lacking wholly in general 
knowledge; in close, logical thinking; in ornament. 
We reach a period in American history where the 
vision is limited by sectional demands, where logic is 
molded to suit conditions, where false premises are 
sincerely believed for the sake of the desired conclu- 
sions. 

Wirt stood on the border between the Revolutionary 
and the National Statesman; he lived until 1834, being 
allowed sufficient time to come in touch with the slav- 
ery agitation in its compromise form. Although of ju- 
dicial weight, he was not a statesman; he was a man 
in whom the humanities claimed a large part of his 
taste, who possessed some of the qualities of a Wash- 
ington Irving, with a large share of the casual re- 
flection of Addison. One finds him the Southern 

191 



192 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

gentleman with a classical culture, with certain grace, 
a large amount of charm, and a responsive apprecia- 
tion. 

Kennedy's memoirs of Wirt are full of agreeable 
incident, indicative of the peculiar culture of the man, 
which in itself was typical of many men in the South. 
Wirt was neither deep nor original in his thinking; 
his education was desultory, his interests wide rather 
than concentrated. He was conscious of literary as- 
piration as an outlet for a certain pliable imagina- 
tion, rather than as a means of forceful expression; 
at times his letters are spirited and overflowing with 
quaint comments on persons and things, more external 
than penetrating, more in the manner of the poet than 
of the statesman with a consuming point of view. His 
expression, as well as his ordering of detail, was not 
spontaneous. 

While preparing the biography of Henry, he wrote 
to Judge Carr (Richmond, August 20, 1815) : " I can 
tell you, sir, that it is much the most oppressive liter- 
ary enterprise that ever I embarked in ; . . . this . . . 
business of stating facts with rigid precision, not one 
jot more or less than the truth — what the deuce has 
a lawyer to do with truth!" Such impatience is 
largely characteristic of Southern writers ; the concise 
arrangement of facts is in a measure dependent upon 
mental habit, and this in turn draws strength from 
precision of outward habit. Plantation environment 
was ample and extravagant; expansiveness of nature, 
which found its most marked channel in hospitality, 
resulted in expansiveness of expression. This often 
developed in a plethora of high-sounding phrases, 
colored by excess of feeling, without any particular 
reference to proportion. The Southerner read poetry 
leisurely, regarding it as born of an inspiration which 
directed all form, and removed it from technical con- 
struction. Therefore, the Southerner wrote his poetry 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD . 193 

after the same fashion ; when he was metrical, he never 
troubled to prune halting lines, weak endings or the 
like; he sent the poem to the local column as he first 
conceived it. 

So with the other writers in their particular lines; 
if they were contemplative, their work became a solid 
and sedate exposition of personal views and personal 
tastes; they were not prejudiced in that particular; 
they were affirmative and fell back upon ancient prec- 
edence for support. In Wirt's instance, the current 
of events must contain elements of beauty to gain 
his deep sympathy; he was not the true Hterary man, 
but the Southern gentleman who had literary tastes 
which accorded with his temperament. It is small 
wonder, therefore, that there should have crept into 
his biography of Henry certain fiction which, trans- 
cending fact, gave satisfaction to himself. For we 
find him writing in this same letter : " I have some- 
times a notion of trying the plan of Botta, who has 
written an account of the American war, and made 
speeches himself for his prominent characters, imitat- 
ing, in this, the historians of Greece and Rome." 

In other words, Wirt was a devotee of the imagina- 
tion; his philosophy took the shape of precepts which 
he scattered among the rising generation as all South- 
erners were accustomed to do; but freed from legal 
analyses, he was now concerned with fancy. ** What 
kind of writings," he asks, " embrace the widest circle 
of readers, and bid the fairest to flourish in never-fad- 
ing bloom?'* His reasoning is that of the time, in- 
dicative of Southern culture, of what was common 
to the country gentleman. " If," he continues, " you 
say political works, count the readers of Locke and 
Sidney, and compare them with those of Shakespeare, 
Milton, Dry den, and Pope. If you choose to come 
down to the present day, compare the readers of Ham- 
ilton and Madison with those of Walter Scott and 



194 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Lord Byron." Thus he uttered his personal opinions, 
and to him they became dicta. He beheved in the 
weight of personal conviction. 

Wirt's prominence as a national figure had its limits ; 
although attaining nearness to the highest posts, he 
was not destined to reach much beyond the Attorney- 
Generalship under Monroe and J. Q. Adams, yet he 
could claim a nomination for the Presidency. Such 
men as William C. Preston and Hugh Swinton Legare 
turned to him for legal training. We may place Wirt, 
therefore, on a line commanding a view backward into 
the Revolution, and forward to the first ominous 
threats of secession, which came with the pronounce- 
ment of South Carolina's nullification policy. He was 
not prophetic, but still possessed the power to deal 
with the abstract idea separated from the practical and 
sectional demands. He was legally safe and sure, 
hardly given to partisan warfare. He was a Gentle- 
man of the Black Stock, knowing his Coke and his 
Shakespeare, his Greek and his Latin. That he was 
close to Addison and Steele, " The Old Bachelor " 
(1810) affords full evidence, and it furthermore 
brings together a coterie of Hterary tastes, among 
whom were Dabney Carr, Judge Tucker, and George 
Tucker, who was afterwards the professor of moral 
philosophy in the University of Virginia. 

The absolute correctness of Kennedy's life of Wirt 
has been questioned, inasmuch as verbal changes were 
made by him in some of the letters, but the two vol- 
umes form most interesting reading, marked largely 
by a narrative and human quality rather than by 
critical insight. One obtains portraits of men from 
the ample side rather than from the close analytical 
side. Not only does such a personage bring one in 
touch with Jefferson, but also with Calhoun of the 
extreme party. Had Wirt not owed much to the old 
school, he might have seen more clearly where the 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 195 

sections were tending, where the politicians were lead- 
ing the South. 

The voice of the Old South increased in volume 
by bequeathment ; it became louder but not richer; it 
turned everything to its own account. In its train- 
ing it was steeped in its economic creed, which worked 
slowly in undermining principles in order to save 
an institution. In New England, during August, 
1837, Emerson, speaking on " The Aimerican Scholar," 
was saying : " We will walk on our own feet ; we will 
work with our own hands; we will speak our own 
minds." But in none of these respects was the 
South accomplishing much; its every energy was 
spent in holding fast where it was, with only one 
ambition — to extend the territory of slavery ; all whites 
were ashamed to work with their hands, and, more- 
over, with the slavocracy in charge of legislation, the 
Southern non-slaveholder was afraid to speak his 
mind. Statesmanship was powerful and persistent, 
but it was not far-seeing. 

The literary claim of the orators of this period is 
handicapped by the historical sequence of events; had 
the elements of success, of truth, been in what they 
uttered — truth to its fullest, its purest depth — then 
these men might have stood higher in the final esti- 
mate. Hayne, Calhoun, and Clay represent phases 
of sectional aggravation; they vary in intensity, and 
their earnestness carried them above the tenability of 
their positions. Calhoun looms upon the horizon — a 
great man whose perspective keeps him from being 
among the greatest; he lacked one of the essential 
graces — humor; he was inclined at times to be pon- 
derous. Certainly, his speeches, pointing to an apos- 
tasy which was sincere, however much it might be due 
to distortion, were full of inconsistencies. 

The voice of the Old South was involved in issues, 
not in principles ; but it is only fair to be particular in 



196 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

noting that though the period saw the slaveholder 
in the ascendent, the whole voice of the Old South 
was not sounded in one direction. The political de- 
markations of the country flowed into party fac- 
tions kept alive by no fundamental ideas, but by shift- 
ing requirements. Even the parties lost their sharp 
distinctions by a general acceptance of the undeniable 
fact that legislation, whatever the party support, was 
being made in the interest of either one of two sec- 
tions — North or South. Webster and Hayne were 
types. 

Take each historical move in the struggle for 
slavery, and you will find around it ringing the voice 
of the Old South, with some of its constructive rich- 
ness pledged to perpetuate that upon which its very 
commercial existence depended. Peculiar as it may 
seem, Calhoun's love for the Union was very great; 
he believed, with all the force of his Southern being, 
that to save the Union, one must save slavery; when 
he foretold the coming struggle, his grief was for the 
Union which must go in order that slavery might stay. 

The voice of the Old South, however, had not as 
yet relinquished the Union; it based its arguments as 
to states' rights upon the strict construction of the 
Constitution. When Nullification blazed through 
South Carolina, Legare, Grimke, Petigru, Drayton, 
and Huger opposed it by identifying themselves with 
the Union and States' Rights Party. Men separated 
on the merest shades of interpretations, and it was not 
until war itself commenced, that party differences 
faded before the undeniable fact that one section was 
fighting another. Then it was that the fire-eater and 
the abolitionist — two mischief-makers, one dangerous 
because lacking in moral idea, the other dangerous be- 
cause ignorant how to adjust a moral idea to actual 
conditions — these two were lost in the love of the 
Southerner for his soil — a love which brought Lee to 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 197 

the head of the Confederate army. Character is above 
intellect, says Emerson; history needs to take cogni- 
zance of the national value of sectional defeat. The 
voice of the Old South, therefore, must be estimated 
as a phase in national development ; its literary quality 
is enriched only by personality, and the peculiar civili- 
zation from which it emanated. 

There was little difference in the education of the 
orator of this regime from that of the constructive 
statesman ; the ultimate test of its value, measured by 
the manner in which conditions were met, could not 
fairly represent its true worth. The spirit of the times 
was sectionalism ; the orator was representative of the 
trust imposed upon him by the people; the strict con- 
struction of the Constitution was argued in terms of 
state sovereignty, and this latter theory — only half 
right — was aggravated by the demands of slavery. 

The balance of power shifted from Virginia to the 
Lower South, and with it came families from the 
Old Dominion, bringing with them much of the tra- 
dition and charm of a somewhat different life. It 
was Gladstone who wisely averred that a system, 
however justly condemned in one respect, had not the 
force to undermine the character of. the individual or 
class brought in touch with it. This was exemplified 
in the career of Dabney, the ideal Southern planter, 
whose memoirs* are so well worth perusing. His 
home was on the water's edge of the Chesapeake — a 
large red brick house, set in the midst of groves and 
fields, with an approach through a lane more than a 
mile and three-quarters long. 

Dabney's attitude toward his negro slaves was that 
they were his people, a trust imposed upon him by 
economic conditions. When the Southampton insur- 
rection took place in Virginia, he entrusted his entire 
family to the care of his house servants ; when, in 1835, 
the exodus from Virginia to the Lower South began, 



198 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

and he determined to locate in Mississippi, Dabney 
took care that in his transfer no negro ties should 
be disrespected, and the three months' pioneer travel 
through the Cotton States called forth an amount of 
duty from the blacks in return for his consideration. 
Flashes of this life are evident throughout "Don 
Miff,'' a novel by Dabney's son, Virginius. 

In this relationship, we note one of the arguments 
offered in favor of slavery; the struggle for existence 
did not worry the negro; he was much nearer the 
white than he could ever hope to be in freedom. Dab- 
ney, an ideal example of master, regarded his slaves 
as more than chattels ; he considered their hours of 
work and recreation; he taught them the varied uses 
of the rich soil; he had half-Saturdays for rest, and 
offered prizes as incentive for cotton picking. Yet, 
despite this, the Mississippians regarded him askance, 
because he was aristocratic in feeling and beheved in 
going to the fields mounted, rather than afoot. 

Excellent glimpses of life in the Lower South are 
given in " A Southern Planter " ; the romancer could 
do no better than deal with Jack Cotton, a highway- 
man who robbed planters on the road between Vicks- 
burg and Memphis; the painter could procure no 
more agreeable picture than the buxom negro woman 
walking squarely down between cotton rows, picking 
with both hands from either side, and crooning some 
darkey melody. In those days it took a week to travel 
from Dabney's place in Burleigh to Pass Christian, 
the center of summer gayety for the Gulf planter, as 
White Sulphur Springs was for the Virginian. Thither 
he would go, passing squatters, one of whom had 
framed the only letter he had ever received by post, 
slowly onward, passing families from Mobile, meeting 
with planters from New Orleans, all intent on yacht- 
ing and racing, all owners of country-seats amidst 
live-oaks and mag-nolias. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 199 

Now, the voice of the Old South was nurtured in 
such an atmosphere; from the standpoint of character, 
the son of the older generation was bequeathed on 
all hands traditional views, as regards home, women, 
rank, politics; he was given no incentive to supplant 
this conservative order by a new and democratic one ; 
nor could he have found, if he had looked elsewhere, 
a richer field for his talents. Early in life he was 
brought in contact with his future associates; as for- 
merly, his ancestry could boast of the influence of 
Wythe, so now, they might turn with pride to Moses 
Waddell (1770-1840) as a teacher of wide reputation. 
In his " Life of Petigru," Grayson writes : " The Wil- 
lington school was a sort of Eton or Rugby of Ameri- 
can manufacture, and the doctor at its head, the Caro- 
lina Dr. Arnold'^ William H. Crawford, George 
McDuffie and Petigru held memories of these primi- 
tive school days, when, beneath an open sky, the blast 
of a horn assembled the pupils. Waddell's career 
includes teaching in Georgia and South Carolina; he 
filled the presidency of the University of Georgia, and 
was the brother-in-law of Calhoun. 

There was also another way for the Old South to 
receive education, a way typified by Philip Henry 
Gosse's experience in Alabama during 1838, where, 
reduced in circumstances, and more interested in his 
own future as a naturalist than in the society around 
him, he was impressed with a fragmentary view, some- 
what dependent upon his personal moods and con- 
veniences. 

He went to Dallas, Alabama, as tutor for the sons 
of the Hon. Chief Justice Reuben, passing through 
neglected pastures, where the buzzard did duty as 
scavenger, but where he found the wild raspberry and 
strawberry plentiful In contrast with this primi- 
tiveness, was the hospitality that met him, where, in 
the North, he had suffered indignity because of t-lie cir- 



500 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

cumstance that he was British. Here, amidst South- 
ern creepers, Hlacs, and the trumpets of the scarlet 
cypress vine, amidst honeysuckle, and sweetbriar, 
" that made the hot air ache with perfume," he held 
his rough-and-ready school. 

As a naturalist, Gosse treasured some agreeable 
descriptions of the lavishness of Alabama vegetation, 
in this respect being impressed, as Fanny Kemble was 
in Georgia, with the picture of the country. But 
Gosse's impressions were a strange mixture of ad- 
verse criticism and admiration, based on chance ob- 
servation. In an undeveloped country, a traveler is 
always held under suspicion ; coming among strangers 
directly from the North, Gosse was sensitive to a cer- 
tain scrutiny which he attributed to a spirit of law- 
lessness among an easy-going rural population. So 
mistrustful were they that, according to his state- 
ment, his letters were opened, the better to be assured 
that they contained naught in disparagement of the 
" domestic institution." 

He lived much in the open, and saw crude plows 
used in the field, and sometimes witnessed cruel treat- 
ment among the cotton-pickers. After he had dis- 
missed his pupils from their split pine-log desks, he 
would wander the forests in search of specimens, with 
ear atune to the mocking-bird, with eye noting the 
chinaberry tree and its lilac bloom. Life came in 
flashes to him, and the beetle was the incident of the 
moment. Occasionally he gave himself up to the 
pleasure of the hour — miniature glimpses of distinc- 
tively Southern attributes — pronunciations of speech, 
enthusiastic comment on Southern waffles, humorous 
references to the negro who stood guard at table with 
the fly brush, impressionistic descriptions of a 'possum 
hunt, with a Major wearing a broad Panama hat and 
a pink shirt; and, finally, a snap-shot view of the 
manner in which cotton was shipped on flat-boats 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 201 

down the Alabama River — these points are the local 
color which the English tutor could not fail to carry 
home with him. 

And it was in this atmosphere, and largely under 
these conditions, that the orators of the Lower South 
were reared ; they grew up in practically a pioneer coun- 
try ; their legislative interest was pledged toward open- 
ing up the cotton region, and defining the territory 
bordering the Gulf — a strange mixture of Spanish 
claim, of Indian contention, of Mexican demand, and 
of trading aggrandizement. When the voice of the Old 
South was not concerned in the national assembly, 
it was involved in establishing more clearly the sov- 
ereign rights of the State it had represented as senator 
and now represented as governor. The history of 
George M. Troup (1780-1856) of Georgia is practi- 
cally the history of that State from 1800 to the Civil 
War. And curiously at first, until the adjustment of 
border lines, Georgia was largely the history of the 
Lower South, since from its original grant Alabama 
and Mississippi were carved. 

Georgia's early history was characterized by law- 
lessness, which found outlet in political duels, William 
H. Crawford being an adept in that method of satis- 
faction, and George McDuffie of Carolina bearing the 
outward marks of conflict. A corrupt legislature 
early acquitted itself (1794) in the Yazoo transac- 
tk)ns, which filled the pockets of land speculators, and 
furnished channels for neat points of argument, when 
the State of Georgia and the good citizens repudiated 
the sale. The spirit of speculation, wild trading, ob- 
scure title deeds, the Yankee sharpness of a mixed 
population, the peculiar class demarkations, conduced 
to make the region one in which legal practice was 
profitable, and in which legal decisions became prece- 
dence. It was the period of partisan leaders and 
'' flush times." 



202 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

These orators of the Old South were the mainstay of 
nationalism at a time when New England was more 
intent on commercial development than on union. It 
was the genius of Calhoun, before he became obsessed 
by a theory which made him a special pleader, that 
welded patriotic forces together sufficiently to meet 
the War of 1812. New England opposed the Em- 
bargo acts as vigorously as ever the South did the 
tariff. The War Congress was largely moved by 
Southern sentiment, by Southern patriotism. In 
1809, Troup's voice was raised in warning to Mass- 
achusetts — that the Embargo was a matter of national 
interest and not of sectional discrimination ; that it 
was false for the North to believe that the South sup- 
ported the Embargo simply because it had no commer- 
cial interests at stake. " Sir," he cried prophetic- 
ally, " in this sentiment - . . is to be sought that 
jealousy which has given rise to so many evils, and 
from which such serious evils are yet to be appre- 
hended.'' 

The voice of the Old South, until 1850, was divided 
in its devotion to the Union and to slavery; then it 
declared itself emphatically for the sentiment of seces- 
sion. There is no doubt that at every point it was 
goaded in the national assembly, and often its protest 
against neglect was a warning rather than an opposi- 
tion. Such men as Troup were of high integrity and 
true civic devotion ; they saw the South neglected, even 
as they witnessed how the West was made a means 
toward commercial ends. 

Troup was an interesting combination of Southern 
elements of culture; his speech was vigorous and in- 
clusive, his letters easy and graphic. The men of 
his generation were less brilliant than their predeces- 
sors because of their special interests, but they were 
bequeathed a large share of administrative ability, 
which they exerted under all circumstances. Occa- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 203 

sionally an apostrophe was measure of the feehng, 
but always it took the customary form, reflective of 
stereotyped comparison. The call to arms, the appeal 
to patriotism, could have no worthier similes than 
Rome's greatness and Greece's glory; the Battle of 
New Orleans was fit subject for no less a genius than 
Homer or Ossian or Milton. From the standpoint 
of legal grasp, picturesque and powerful by reason 
of the solid manner in which they approached prob- 
lems, these men were original, but their embellishment 
was laid on and did not grow from the material it- 
self. Troup was recognized for his mental vigor, not 
for the greatness of his intellect. In this respect, like- 
wise, Calhoun was kept from becoming a statesman 
of the first magnitude. 

The state history in the Lower South shows a pro- 
nounced interest in territorial development of re- 
sources ; Troup's administration as Governor of Geor- 
gia was concerned with internal improvements which, 
with the fine distinctions drawn between government 
and sovereignty, were necessarily to come in conflict 
with the whole system of national discrimination. The 
Federal authorities were not alive to Southern inter- 
ests; they did not see the necessity for ably abetting 
state activity, and the Southern people began to grow 
suspicious that, as members of a compact, they were 
being subjected to a vacillating will. But the men of 
the South, born to leadership, possessed a more iron 
determination ; wrong though they might be in princi- 
ple, their ultimate object was prompted by no mean 
motive. Troup was exact, but, like a true Southerner, 
he was alert to the interest of his section, since New 
England would have it so. In his first message of 
1824, he called attention to the fact that between state 
and nation the relations were constantly shifting. 
The Missouri Compromise had threatened sovereignty 
as well as slavery. 



204 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

During these times, the Lower South was concerned 
with the Creek Indians, who, in 1802, owned nearly 
twenty-six milHon acres of Georgia, which meant Ala- 
bama as w^ell. The history of the dividing line be- 
tween these States would form as interesting a chroni- 
cle as Byrd's record of the North Carolina survey. 
Troup met the situation with dignity and with force; 
the Northern papers, because of his insistence that 
the powers at Washington recognize his request, began 
to speak of him as the " mad Governor of Georgia " ; 
but he was set in purpose and above party interests 
in the accomplishment of his duty. The Southerner 
in his actions was not ruled by personal interest, he 
was not measured by ambitions which made him neg- 
lect his duty. However much Calhoun might covet 
the Presidency, or Crawford and Clay work toward 
the same goal, the Southern statesman was no politi- 
cian in the sense that he would sell conviction for 
position. 

It will thus be seen that Troup's determined stand 
in the matter of Georgia's development pointed toward 
his being a typical states' rights man; unlike Calhoun 
or McDuffie who, when they uttered decisions which 
analyzed the principles of government, made their 
utterance well-nigh final in exposition, if not in the 
essential truth of the argument, Troup's writing, 
while determined and exact, was not brilliant and 
terse. He left no doubt in the minds of people, how- 
ever, that Georgia was independent and knew best 
what was most needed. His first message forcibly 
denied the right of "of^cial intermeddling of abolition 
societies " ; the South alone understood the negro. 
The voice of the Old South was embarrassed by con- 
flicting interests which centered upon two set purposes 
— to preserve slavery and to extend its boundaries. 
Slave labor was killing free labor, and state interest 
invariably conflicted with national power. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 205 

This feeling grew with the years and gained ad- 
herents; during 1833, Troup was presidential candi- 
date for the States' Rights men; in 1852, he was again 
in the arena under the banner of the Southern Rights 
Party of Alabama. But call it by any name you 
please, it was all the same.. Partisan warfare was to 
weaken the political strength of the whole nation, how- 
ever much it might strengthen the political sway of 
Southern men. When slavery and states' rights ter- 
minated in secession, party warfare unified according 
to sectional sympathies. 

Unlike the great compromiser. Clay, the voice of 
the Old South asked no half-way measures ; the Gentle- 
man of the Black Stock foresaw the evil of playing 
with edged tools. Compromise would hardly gain 
one his leadership in Congress. Yet though that was 
the attitude, history shows that mainly through com- 
promise was open disruption periodically averted — dis- 
ruption of Ne^y England at one moment and of the 
South at another. " If I have not right on my side," 
was Governor Troup's motto, "I will surrender, but 
not compromise." 

The pioneer movement was southwest as well as 
west. Charleston had a literary circle around Simms ; 
Augusta could boast of a coterie with Richard Henry 
Wilde as the founder; Mobile and New Orleans con- 
tained the color of foreign taste. The very condition 
of the planter afforded him the only opportunity of 
being the active member of society; for him the gov- 
ernment was worked, and rich and poor necessarily 
drifted apart — a barrier of class on one side and of 
color on the other. A Georgia historian writes: 
"The estates had become very large [by 18 12] and 
the oneness of conditions had unified society, and 
whether the low-country rice or sea-island planters 
descended from the English, the Scotch, or the Hugue- 
nots, they had much the same features, and formed a 



2o6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

society of their own." The yeoman of the Lower 
South was born to sloth. But in 1806,. the up-coun- 
try folk of South Carolina lodged a denaand that their 
presence be recognized as a political factor, and the 
State was brought to acknowledge their claims to 
representation. 

It was to this middle class — a voiceless unit in the 
midst of slave interests — that such a book as Helper's 
" Impending Crisis " was addressed ; among them were 
to be found the dissenters, when the fire-eater blazed 
his way through the Cotton Belt. 

The Dearborn wagon with its cattle trail is char- 
acteristic of the Lower South during all this period; 
there are Daniel Boones and Davy Crocketts of the 
Southwest as well as of Kentucky; there are Sam 
Houstons, and Indian traders of the caliber of Alex- 
ander McGillivray, who had business connections with 
all Southern Indians from Mobile to Pensacola, and 
as representative of Panton, Leslie & Co. (subse- 
quently John Forbes & Co.), had influence sufficient 
to make treaties with the Alabamas, the Choctaws and 
the Chickasaws; there were Mexican intrigue, Cuban 
filibustering, and Creole interest in the development of 
New Orleans. 

Amidst such tendencies, John Randolph's figure 
towered in shadow; here we have the touch of three 
generations. The keen-tempered Virginian who rec- 
ognized no other sovereign power than his State, who 
fought all along the line, past-master of sarcasm and 
invective, crossed swords with Henry, and in his last 
days opened his vial of wrath upon Clay in unjust 
accusation. He opposed everything national, and was 
always on the qui vive to demand satisfaction. Bald- 
win, in " Party Leaders," sketches the picture 
graphically, thereby exemplifying the marked agree- 
ableness of his own style : " It cannot be denied that, 
at this time, John Randolph's merciless sarcasm [to- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 207 

gether with the shaking of his long forefinger] was 
the expression of a general sentiment ; that he occupied 
the place in politics assigned to Captain Riley in pri- 
vate Hfe, or to Overreach in the characters of fiction; 
and that sentence of virulent satire, condensing the 
venom of a whole brood of cobra capellos, * the union 
of the Puritan and the blackleg, of Blifil and Black 
George ' [the form of anathema thrown by Randolph 
at Clay when the latter was accused of bargaining with 
Adams for the Presidency], spoken as Junius would 
have uttered it, conveyed the general sense at once 
of his conduct and his character. No wonder Clay 
called the sardonic satyr to the field, and essayed the 
keen marksmanship of splitting a bullet on him; the 
edge of his shadowy outline being nearly as sharp as 
his wit/' 

Calhoun represented the embodiment of an idea; 
his logical powers were wonderfully keen, but they 
were not sound in constructive progress. When he 
was not ruled by the demands of the local institution, 
he could be masterly in the acuteness of his intellect, 
the same Calhoun who, while a student at Yale, en- 
gaged President Dwight in argumentation; fearless, 
upright, risking with an iron grip that knew no tem- 
porizing — such was the force of Calhoun. Apart 
from slavery, say some, he is entitled to just deserts 
as no mean statesman, but if one look closely, it will 
be seen that to separate him from slavery would be 
to deprive Calhoun of his defining marks; his evolu- 
tion typifies the effect of slavery upon a mind at first 
intent on the nation's interests. He was no mean 
statesman, in spite of slavery, but it was slavery that 
militated against his ever becoming one of the nation's 
greatest statesmen — ^that, together with defects in edu- 
cation. 

Southern legislation, as it referred to slavery, was 
much more aggressive than its application; the fight 



2o8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

was principally an economic one, and a social one only 
in so far as it related to the preservation of the in- 
tegrity of the white race; there was no personal ani- 
mosity against the black man as such. Clay, during 
his initial days in Kentucky, where slavery existed in 
small proportion, strove to abolish the institution, but 
the sentiment of the agricultural class was against him. 
The South was intent on the preservation of slavery. 

Calhoun wielded the art of logic; Clay was the 
genius of compromise, and cared little for close rea- 
soning; neither was safe, for both worked within too 
narrow limits. Whenever the southwestward trend 
of slavery was impeded, there came threats from South 
Carolina; very largely, Calhoun represented their de- 
sire, even though he might curb their impetuosity ; 
they might publish such papers as " The Crisis " in 
the Charleston Mercury, reflective of the Revolution- 
ary broadside, and they might cry "Texas or Dis- 
union,'' but he worked persistently, occupying posts 
where, most advantageously, he might see his inten- 
tions consummated. His progression toward the ex- 
treme constitutional attitude was inevitable, but he 
was inconsistent in his steps away from Union senti- 
ment, and thereby representative of a certain aspect of 
Southern mind. 

From the standpoint of history, we must turn to 
Calhoun's speech of August 2^, 1832, for what Von 
Hoist calls " the classical exposition of the theory of 
state sovereignty"; it was his high-water-mark ar- 
gument. Thereafter, his bold front resulted in a series 
of assertions of exceptional power, and as remark- 
able as his essays analyzing the Government and the 
Constitution; throughout, we have fitful flashes of the 
man's innate honesty and firm conviction. At a time 
when he was national, he might have denied the ad- 
vocacy of refined arguments on the Constitution, but 
later this attitude was to alter. At one moment, he 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 209 

could utter his theory of nulHfication, which grew out 
of the Tariff of 1828 and brought forth the defense 
of the minority; at another moment, after the nulHfi- 
cation sentiment had subsided, he could stand forth 
against the spoils system under Jackson, a stand fore- 
shadowing the Civil Service of to-day, even as Clay, 
by his American system of protection, pointed the way 
to tariff legislation. 

Clay and Calhoun were representatives of people 
rather than of deep- founded governmental principles; 
they knew men rather than books ; they attracted con- 
stituents by the genius of their manner, by the intent- 
ness and direct earnestness of their attack. It is 
claimed for Clay that he was a compromiser, because 
by nature, in spite of his support in the War of 18 12, 
during which he narrowly escaped service in the 
field, and, despite his record as a duelist, he was a 
peaceable man, with womanly intuition. In establish- 
ing for Clay a position of superiority over Webster, 
Schurz asserts that the former *' possessed in a far 
higher degree the true oratorical temperamerht — that 
force of nervous exaltation " which transforms the 
orator into a superior being and impresses him — 
thought, passion, and will — upon the hearts of his lis- 
teners. In this respect, the orators of the old regime, 
apart from the historical import of their views, were 
creative artists — speaking with almost a prophetic 
touch of inspiration that rises above close analysis, 
and plays upon feeling. 

The democratic strength of these leaders in the 
party warfare of the period was an anomaly, in view 
of the conservative institution for which they were 
fighting. But their greatness was not wholly depend- 
ent upon a special cause; there were character, deter- 
mination, large enthusiasm, behind them. It was not 
an epoch when it was necessary to ask how much do 
you know, but the man was a popular figure when 



210 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

with deeds he could answer the question, — how much 
can you do ? Upon such a tide rose Andrew Jackson, 
hero of New Orleans; with such a victory behind 
him, it mattered little whether he had no literary 
polish. To be a partisan leader one must lead, and 
Jackson, from the battlefield, with command upon his 
lips, brought his military methods into politics; his 
mind was untutored but keen, not facile yet alert. 
Though his writing was sadly wanting in correctness, 
it was marked by terseness. " His faculties did not 
sweep a large circle," commented Baldwin, *' but they 
worked like a steam-engine within that circle." The 
supremacy of the Lower South at Washington was 
gained through unremitting energ}^ The intensity 
was of different degrees; the volume about the same. 
Oratory, to have appeal, must have a preponderance of 
common sense; it must reach the multitude. Jackson 
and Clay were alike in this respect — the one was a 
popular idol ; the other, despite his personal shortcom- 
ings, was loved by the American people. Still, though 
more is known of these men than of Calhoun, the 
latter will be more distinct in the future, because in 
his person he represents a large slice — a crucial seg- 
ment — of history, which terminated in civil war. 

These men came into the national councils early in 
life. Clay was under the age requirement when he 
went to the Senate; he was thirty- four when, as 
Speaker of the House in the Twelfth Congress, he had 
as associates, Lowndes of South Carolina, who was 
tweiity-nine, and Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, 
who was thirty-five. Though young and prone to im- 
petuosity, they exercised the deliberateness of mature 
character. Possibly the Revolutionary tradition had 
not yet been dimmed; Lowndes, unlike most repre- 
sentatives from his State, exhibited a calm courtesy 
that only added surety to his analysis. He argued for 
the Union, and so did Calhoun, but in different ways ; 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 211 

he constructively, the other destructively. The South- 
erner was not always headstrong; he sometimes re- 
pressed his sectional feeling for the good of the repub- 
lic, though he foresaw that it would react on economic 
advance. As Clay realized the necessity for protec- 
tion, so Lowndes drew aside from the opposition to 
the 181 6 tariff. Most of these partisan leaders, what- 
ever their attitude — just so it was strong — usually re- 
ceived the presidential nomination, which weakened 
the character of the general elections. They were all 
fighting* over different aspects of the same subject — 
slavery and its extension. 

The Southern orator possessed seriousness, but be- 
ing on the defensive, he either sedulously restrained 
his: humor, or lacked it altogether. Hayne and Cal- 
houn might both be accused of an acute want of such 
saving grace in debate ; the former showed this in cer- 
tain irritation, the latter in the precise punctiliousness 
of his manner. But their flow of language made up 
for their want of elasticity of mind. William Pinck- 
ney was noted for the clear structure of his meaning 
while on the floor, for the exact intent of his words; 
he never seemed to lack ideas, never appeared to 
falter. Lowndes not only was careful to observe 
parliamentary rules, but went out of his way to re-state 
his opponents' arguments with such clearness that 
often his hearers wondered whether his refutation 
could possibly be as strong. The Southern orators 
were simple, almost na'ive. 

They were all thrown together more or less inti- 
mately; their prestige gave them' opportunity to ma- 
neuver for their particular needs, but not to maneuver 
in a corrupt sense. Their zeal sometimes overstepped 
their wisdom, as when Wise contrived to assist Cal- 
houn to the State Secretaryship under Tyler, for the 
sake of Texas annexation and Mexican control. Clay 
first showed his daring in his attitude toward the ac- 



212 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

quiring of West Florida. Hugh S. Legare was the 
avowed classical devotee among these orators, though 
Mrs. Ravenel claims that Trescott was "the most 
perfect of Carolinian writers." They may not have 
been flexible in style, but they were ever ready in en- 
ergy. What Benton says of Crawford may truly 
be said of many of his contemporaries, — "he . . . ag- 
grandized on the approach." 

The party leaders and the party editors were the 
figures of the day; the latter had to stand by their 
editorials as strictly as a soldier by his gun. And 
sometimes they fell in duel, as in the case of John 
Hampden Pleasants (1797-1846) of the Richmond 
Whig, and of William R. Taber of the Charleston 
Mercury. The Southern spirit was fiery, made over- 
sensitive by being placed in direct line for attack. 

It is not incumbent upon us to draw attention to 
the individual richness of these men's careers. One 
figure succeeded the other on the platform in quick 
succession, then returned to his home, having run the 
gamut of civic service, having stated the South's in- 
tent in different degrees of intensity. In South Caro- 
lina, Hayne rose upon the greatness of Judge Cheves ; 
Petigru assumed the role that Hayne relinquished. 
Then, after their fame was established, they repaired 
to whatever estate they owned. Clay's "Ashland" 
became a center, even as Jefferson's "Monticello" 
was before it; the darkness around his weak habits 
cannot dim the fame of Clay's country place outside 
of Lexington, Kentucky, with its ample acres and its 
thoroughbreds. Calhoun's personal character, his 
home life, the attractiveness of his official residence 
in Washington, bespeak the charm of his character. 
These Southerners of the old regime were magnetic; 
they dominated with a forceful courtesy in the pres- 
ence of women; they fired the hearts and minds 
of the younger generation. They were, as well, ex- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 213 

cellent sportsmen; Clay's race-horses must be offset 
by John Randolph's appearing as his own jockey dur- 
ing a social contest in Charleston. 

A close study of this period will indicate the 
South divided against itself; the Union sentiment 
must not be identified with that consoHdating process 
which resulted in Republicanism, soon to become a 
distinct war party. On the other hand, the opposi- 
tion in the South to " States' Rights politics," with a 
tinge of secession attached, was pronounced. Such a 
man as Petigru regarded the discord between sections 
as a miserable condition, " odious to the best men on 
either side"; he laid the cause of nullification and se- 
cession sentiment to the credit of barbecue and stump 
orators whose clamors were due to " a disordered im- 
agination, or to the fumes of a dinner's excitement." 
Grayson's sketch of this man suggests the typical law- 
yer of the period, in whom was a strong tinge of liter- 
ary taste which was further cultivated by a consider- 
able acquaintance with books. Looking from his 
office window in Charleston upon a garden plot which 
he himself had made, because of his passion for trees 
and shrubbery, he represents the conservative temper 
in the South during the actual throes of civil war. 

One must not forget, however, that the political 
aspect, as measured by the influence of party leaders, 
was aggravated by the economic condition and by the 
economic demand. Helper's " Impending Crisis " did 
not go unheeded in Congress, though the average 
Southerner was more ready to listen to the views of 
De Bow. If we take from his arguments a certain 
class hatred, and regard the matter sanely, his appeal 
to a middle-class citizen, in whom he recognized a 
force which, with proper incentive, might arrest the 
domination of the slavocracy, is certainly not so very 
false. Olmsted by his writing gives, as we have here- 
tofore noted, a faint view of Southern population 



214 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

apart from the slave-holding class; in the voicelese 
South, in the middle class, Helper saw the seeds of 
future solution. 

Heated discussion generally produces humorous as- 
sertion ; even truth may be cartooned by over-statement 
and over-coloring. Helper vies with Jaques' " Seven 
Ages of Man,'* in his picture of Slave State depend- 
ence upon the staple products of Free State labor ; he 
writes: 

"In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; 
in childhood we are humored with Northern gew- 
gaws; in youth we are instructed out of Northern 
books ; at the age of maturity we sow our * wild oats ' 
on Northern soil ; in middle life we exhaust our wealth, 
our energies, and talents in the dishonorable vocation 
of entailing our dependence on our children and on 
our children's children, and, to the neglect of our own 
interests and the interests of those around us, in giv- 
ing aid and succor to every department of Northern 
power; in the decline of life we remedy our eye-sight 
with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities 
with Northern canes ; in old age we are drugged with 
Northern physic; and, finally, when we die, our in- 
animate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric, are 
stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a North- 
ern carriage, entombed with a Northern spade, and 
memorialized with a Northern slab!" 

Reduced to its barest arguments. Helper's conviction 
was that slavery was not only expensive but unprofit- 
able, that the South was in need of manufactures, 
and that the much-flaunted prowess in agriculture 
was not great; that the non-slaveholder had no right 
to be quiescent while a limited class governed the sec- 
tion for its own interests ; that the South should wake 
up to the industrial condition which realized only a 
small profit on large investments. We will not go 
into his discussion of the methods by which slavery 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 21^5 

might have been abolished; conditions were such that 
had the Southern mind universally been prepared for 
it, and had the labor problem been thoughtfully sys- 
tematized, a time might have arrived when the black 
man would have gained his freedom through evolu- 
tion rather than through revolution. The pseudo- 
sentiment of Washington, Jefferson, Henry and such 
slaveholders, regarding abolition, could not have 
brought any far-reaching results. But the whole 
cause of the inanition which marked the middle-class 
population was due to the fact that the voice of the 
Old South made no direct appeal to them. C. C. Clay 
of Alabama deplored the tendency to drive the in- 
dustrious freeman aAvay from the state before the 
southwestward sweep of the rice-planter; he referred 
to the danger of land exhaustion, which always follows 
a one-class interest. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 
pointing his finger at the Southern sedge patches w^hich 
outshone the sun, cried against the domination of 
slavocracy. While he was running for Governor, just 
before the war, he exclaimed : 

" Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed 
away from you. You have not, as yet, dug more than 
coal enough to warm yourselves at your own hearths ; 
you have set no tilt-hammer of Vulcan to strike blows 
worthy of gods in your iron-foundries ; you have not 
spun more than coarse cotton enough, In the way of 
manufactures, to clothe your own slaves." 

This then was another voice of the Old South which 
had in it the ring of the New. Helper was right after 
a passionate fashion, but his remedy was aggressive. 
His book was met by a characteristic rejoinder; he 
was answered, " dissected," in a treatise of equal con- 
tempt and accusation. But anger is not argument, 
though the point of view is reflective of a certain tem- 
per in the South. Lamar might offset Wise in the 
support of slavery, and Helper's suggestions for aboli- 



2i6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tion might be counterbalanced by eleven Biblical sanc- 
tions for slavery,* but the South at large was hardly 
affected by such appeal. 

Pro-slavery arguments were philosophically stated 
by Harper, Hammond, Simms, Bledsoe, and Dew; 
their voices were lifted in answer to the sentiment 
against the institution ; Dew, with all the knowledge of 
history, metaphysics and political law that his post at 
William and Mary College afforded him, took stand in 
opposition to the strong feeling actuating the Virginia 
legislature, when it debated the abolition problem dur- 
ing 1831-32. The arguments of these men for the 
preservation of the slave were far more puerile than 
their arguments against abolition; it might seem that 
the latter would satisfy the former, but the want of 
compensation is excellent indication that the South 
knew of no other way than slavery to hold the black 
man in check, and naturally feared his freedom, while 
the North wanted the freedom, unthinking as to what 
the result might be without economic and social prep- 
aration. For emancipation and political suffrage 
and abolition sentiment resulted in all the evils of the 
reconstruction period. 

The whole structure of Southern society was regu- 
lated by the demands of cotton, and its dependence 
upon slave labor; as the author of ** Cotton is King " 
asserted, in answer to his critics, the two factors were 
not indivisible ; he did not claim " that free labor is 
incapable of producing cotton, but that it does not 
produce it so as to affect the interests of slave labor." 
He stood upon clear ground in the claim that so far 
abolition, and the efforts toward colonization, had 
failed to solve the problem, and that so far conditions 

* See, for example: Levit. xxv.44; Rom. i.29; Gal. v. 19; i 
Cor. v.u; i Cor. vi.9; 2 Tim. iii.2; i Cor. vii.22; Gal. vi.17: 
Matt. XV.19; I Tim. i.9; Mark vii.21 ; Eph. v.5; Col. iii.8; Rev. 
xxi.8; Rev. xxii.15; 2 Peter i.i; Jude i. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 217 

of poverty in the North were harder than conditions 
of slavery in the South. 

Thus, in brief epitome, we have sketched the at- 
mosphere in which the voice of the Old South was 
cultivated; mentally it was not conducive to varied 
thinking, and socially it did not encourage independ- 
ent thinking. But the full-length portrait of the orator 
is one of tremendous color, of soHd frame; even in 
the shadow of perspective view, it retains its nobility 
of pose. Upon his face are marked the firm lines of 
command, of conviction, of set purpose; within his 
eyes shine beneficence, kindliness, intelligence, deep 
sentiment, humor. His pose is stately and is measure 
of his solid stand in life ; it is essentially one of action 
prompted by intellectual impetus. His head is raised 
fearlessly, not in defiance of law, but in determination 
and in spirited enthusiasm. The portrait is an old 
master of a human sort; no study of technique may 
emulate it. The countenance shines from the limbo 
of dead issues, and what we cherish is the type of 
manhood that rose above, though still a part of, the 
Old Regime. 



CHAPTER IX 
LOCAL SENSE AND NATIVE HUMOR 



In his essay on "The Want of a History," Mr. 
Page deplores the lack of a full record of the South- 
ern people, in which the truth is spoken fearlessly — 
the measure of their activity in the light of unbiased 
fact. This plea of his was written some years ago, 
before critics within the South became imbued with 
the necessity for self-examination and for the cor- 
rection or modification of their institutions in the light 
of the future and in the experience of the past. The 
historical viewpoint in the South to-day is broad, is 
national ; out of it has come such a philosophical 
grasp of the situation as Mr. Murphy displays in his 
book on "The Basis of Ascendency," and as Mr. 
Brown exhibits in his volume on " The Lower South 
in American History." Inclusiveness is not the all- 
essential need in our "want of a history," but in- 
cisiveness is more necessary ; it is this point that shall 
be taken up in a discussion of the development of the 
Historic Sense in the South. 

As a means of associating names with the periods 
in which their views were formulated as well as 
effected, we are safe in identifying the historian of this 
ante-bellum era with the writer whose local sense was 
more developed along the line of picturesque narrative 
and easy record, than in the spirit of constructive rea- 
soning and criticism. C. C. Jones was identified 
with Georgia, Albert J. Pickett with Alabama, C. E. 
A. Gayarre with Louisiana, especially in his defense 

218 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 219 

of the Creoles against Mr. Cable. When the mind of 
the South was concerned analytically, it was con- 
cerned polemically and was on the defensive ; the his- 
torians dared not be as energetic as the politicians; 
the statesmen were concerned with development, but 
soon found themselves pledged to special interests; 
they ceased to see with the sweeping vision of the 
founders; political maneuvering was the game. The 
historian became a partisan on one hand, a romanc>;r 
on the other. The province of the historic view was 
not clearly defined. The colonial author kept a rec- 
ord based upon observation; his text smacked of ad- 
venture because his life was adventure and the environ- 
ment was new. The ante-bellum author, still in a 
sense the pioneer, had traditions to respect and institu- 
tions to preserve ; his intellectual connection with Eu- 
rope was of the seventeenth century ; he could not say 
how far contemporary Europe affected him. In that 
direction, he knew that the South hoped to gain the 
sympathy of England through commercial relationship 
rather than through moral suasion, through kinship 
and similar traditions rather than through similar 
views on the slave question. 

Because of a vague notion of history as a social 
evolution, — because, more than in any other section, 
the vision was close to the condition which formed 
the materials of history, the historian turned to the 
past with the romancer's zest; from the invaluable 
data he gathered comes the knowledge we have of the 
social life of the period — sometimes they are first- 
hand gatherings, otherwise traditions passed down 
through generations. The historian and the roman- 
cer knew their ground; the topographical knowl- 
edge was minute; it was used in the spirit of attach- 
ment. 

This leads us to the statement that Southern fic- 
tion was in large proportion Southern history; 



220 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Gayarre was criticised for being too much of the ro- 
mancer, while Simms and Kennedy and Tucker were 
often too much of the historian. Perhaps this was. 
because, as was characteristic of most writers in the 
South, they attempted every form of literature. 
Gayarre was not only a novelist but a dramatist as 
well. Yet despite a certain tendency of these writers 
to fall into philosophy on one hand and romance on 
the other, it is surprising to find them imbued with 
a high standard of research. The establishment of 
state historical societies in the South has counter- 
acted the indifference once found as regards the pres- 
ervation of documents, but the modern methods of 
scholarship will not succeed any more fully than these 
in preserving the true spirit of the civilization. They 
were men of the old order, given to high conviction 
in political doctrine, and, as Dr. Alderman so gra- 
ciously asserts, this genius for intensity of conviction 
often compensates in one way for a loss in liberalism. 
"They become ideahsts," he writes, "possibly mar- 
tyrs to an idea. ... It is plain to me that by the 
very tragedy of its history, the South is the most 
idealistic section in America to-day [1903]. . . . 
No other people except the French will as quickly 
rally around a phrase, or a doctrine, or a song, 
or an attractive personality like the American of 
those Southern States.'* The great difference be- 
tween the ante-bellum historian and the critic within ^ 
the South to-day rests in the application of that ideal-'' 
ism to problems immediately before the South and as 
affecting the entire nation. Neither Mr. Murphy 
nor Mr. Brown nor J. L. M. Curry could be accused 
of a lack of the historic sense; their attempts, eco- 
nomic, social and intellectual, have all been along the 
line of broad, national significance, but they wisely 
insist that the historian of a civilization, so peculiar as 
that in the South of the past, may not judge in aloof- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 221 

ness, however deep, minute and accurate his scholar- 
ship. 

The weight of the old-time Southern reviews is 
indicative of the tendency of the Southern writer to 
speculate on the past, and to draw from the past only 
that which would suffice to support his present behef ; 
essays were written in grand style and in aristocratic 
indifference to popular appeal. To be a contributor 
to the Southern Review was sufficient guarantee of 
excellence in belles lettres; but though many of 
these men of the South possessed the scholar's fervor, 
they were limited in research by their social restric- 
tions. It was called erudition in those days ; men had 
a passion for ancient learning, and Legare, with his 
marvelous range of reading, his natural bent for lan- 
guages, his over-education which detracted somewhat 
from his popularity, had a literary style which was 
oppressive. He was the classicist among the Charles- 
ton legal profession, and his wit in conversation, his 
pungency in apt illustration, made him agreeable com- 
pany; in intellect, people called him the compeer of 
Professor Thomas Cooper. In a city where there 
were marked pretensions to literary supremacy, Legare 
had no rival, unless we consider Crafts as such; they 
both were impediments in the advance of Simms, 
who smarted under the aristocratic opposition shown 
toward him. 

In» view of this rivalry, Legare's opinion of Crafts 
is all the more filled with meaning, though his irri- 
tation is none the less partly justifiable; for Crafts 
played high in the hope of gaining reputation. As 
sound character went in those days, no one thought 
of producing effect superficially ; there was a genius 
in the mere attitude of men. Legare himself, early 
stricken with disease that distorted his figure, rose 
above it through possession of fluency of speech and 
easy gesture and close logic of debate. 



222 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

He was conscientious and thorough ; when he went 
to Brussels as United States Minister, his official 
correspondence was painstaking, but everywhere he 
moved, Legare was aloof, retiring. His journals are 
measure of the man ; they are not lightened with any 
sprightliness of description, but show the care of the 
close observer; comments on society are made with a 
shyness that betokens distaste for such an existence. 
His biographer notes that after passing the bar and at- 
tending Edinburgh University, and after remaining 
abroad for two years, Legare returned to Charleston 
no " traveled exquisite." His diary of 1833 is inter- 
spersed with classical quotation; he fluctuated easily 
between the Spanish of " Gil Bias '' and the " Philoso- 
phic du Droit " within an afternoon's reading, but 
his foreign surroundings drew from him no graphic 
account and no deep personal concern, despite the fact 
that he was constantly in the midst of the most noted 
gatherings. 

The literature of Legare's record suggests by con- 
trast the sprightliness of Mme. Octavia Walton Le 
Vert (1810-1870), of Mobile, who traveled abroad 
in 1853 and 1855 ; she was gifted with a little more 
than the tourist's appreciation, but her response to 
external conditions was typically feminine, excelling 
in the small knowledge that betokens an active intel- 
lect, if not a distinctive one. Were it not for the per- 
sonal flavor which mingled old-world impressions 
with social descriptions, the account would be nothing 
more than a guide book, but Madame Le Vert car- 
ried influential introductions with her which placed 
her in high circles, and her impressions of Queen 
Victoria and the Court possess distinctive color, though 
they do not contain the excellent weight of Madame 
de Genlis's Journals. 

Mingled with her varied impressions, one notes the 
constant reference to American statesmen in com- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 223 

parison with European diplomats. Madame Le Vert, 
like Mrs. Clopton, who was formerly the wife of 
Senator C. C. Clay of Alabama, enjoyed popularity 
in Washington when Calhoun, Webster, and Clay 
held the Senate in thrall; there is no vital perma- 
nence to her expression ; her feeling gave only momen- 
tary weight to her adjectives, and her friendships 
moved her to plethoric enthusiasms. She is the casual 
though quickly appreciative observer. 

Yet in an easy manner, she could mount to pas- 
sages of facile grace and vividness. Her gondola 
apostrophe in Italy where Byron's poetry held her 
appreciation, her contrast of Italian rice fields with 
Southern scenes and the dirt-eater, her witness of 
Cuban bullfights, her isolated descriptions of foreign 
women, of the theater, and especially of the Spanish 
Passion Play, are not dull reading. The large fault 
in her writing is the over-domination of vivacious 
personality and the absence of any coherent atmos- 
phere and perspective. These latter qualities, so rare 
in " Impressions/' are the distinguishing marks of 
Fanny Kemble's " Journal of a Resident on a Georgia 
Plantation," and of Tyrone Power's travels in 
America during 1833, '34, '35. 

Nevertheless, to omit the name of Madame Le Vert 
from a narrative of Southern literature would be to 
neglect a distinguishing mark of Mobile society, where 
she held high position socially, as her husband did 
professionally as a physician. The historian may not 
have lost much by the failure, on the part of the Le 
Vert family, to publish her sketches of the men in 
the nation's capital at the time she could boast of the 
firm regard of Mr. Clay, but Madame Le Vert's 
quick observation would have produced valuable social 
color in small matters. She had a certain provincial 
point of view, but in intellect she was sufficiently inde- 
pendent, and in spirit she was full of kindliness; 



224 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

she did not aspire to authorship, but was encouraged 
therein by that species of admiring friend which is 
responsible for a great part of the mediocre literature 
in the South. 

Literary activity in the varied professions was not 
wanting in the South ; the scientific mind cannot be 
chained to locahty, though one speaks of the Charles- 
ton botanist, Stephen ElHott, whose son became fa- 
mous as Bishop of Georgia, and of the Le Contes, 
identified with South CaroHna College. From the 
South, Audubon grew into wide prominence, after the 
manner of Washington Allston, while Dr. J. Marion 
Simms of South Carolina and Alabama left in his 
agreeable narrative, " The Story of My Life," an 
account of his distinctive professional advance in New 
York and abroad. 

While it is hard to measure scientific activity in 
terms of sectional influence, one is able, in the case 
of Lieut. Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806- 1873), to 
lay stress upon the Southern interest exhibited by him 
in the application of science to sectional improvement. 
He was thoroughly practical in the use of dry mate- 
rial, due no doubt to an imaginative power which 
added great attractiveness to his style as it did to 
that of Huxley. His physical and geographical ex- 
aminations were brought to bear upon Southern ad- 
vancement, and he was constant in his plea for navy- 
yards in the South as a protection to Southern har- 
bors. Agriculture and commerce were carefully 
watched by him, and to the farmers of Alabama he 
outlined a system of weather reports which was later 
carried into effect. His brilliant mind received rec- 
ognition everywhere, and honors were offered him 
from abroad; but he had his personal difficulties, 
even coming into conflict with the Navy Board, which 
retired him without just cause; the decision was later 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 225 

set aside by Congress, and Maury was made a com- 
mander. 

As a scientist in a limited sense, Maury's outlook 
was broad, and his activity many-sided; he was con- 
cerned in the laying of the cable ; he often advocated 
the building of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama ; 
and he was also of an inventive turn. His life, 
marked by his exceptional capacity for application, 
was likewise graced with a charm wholly personal. 
Maury's sense of humor was keen, his literary taste 
pronounced ; he was not aloof ; even his written 
technical matter was submitted to criticism in family 
conclave. His science only served to show him a 
clearer view of progress in all channels of human 
need; coupled with his close knowledge of the Bible, 
he also recognized fully the harmony which existed 
" between science and revealed religion." In his home 
life he was typically Southern, in his public life he 
was earnest and firm. Weak men would have suc- 
cumbed to the flattery which was heaped upon Maury 
by Russia, France and England. He entered the 
Confederate Army and went abroad in the interests 
of his section, but he was a man of peace, and tried 
to hasten the cessation of conflict. Through it all, 
his practical vein was uppermost, though he had many 
dreams which marked him as an idealist — dreams 
that stretched to Mexico and to the borders of the 
Amazon. Praised by Humboldt, he was honored by 
the Royal Geographical Society of England, and 
given an LL. D. by Cambridge, with Tennyson and 
Max Miiller. The South knew his worth, and in 
1868 Sewanee offered him a post. In the South he 
was a figure of large proportions, but, save in the 
strength of his manhood, he was an unusual type. 
His family connections, however, afford a rare oppor- 
tunity of tracing the rich strain of Huguenot blood, 



226 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

seen in such a book as Ann Maury's " Memories of 
a Huguenot Family." 

Among the ministers, a strong sense of locality de- 
veloped along the line of their sectarian interests. 
Religion and science were not on friendly terms in 
the South, and the former was as much an obstacle 
in the way of physical research, as slavery was. in 
the way of social investigation. James Woodrow, 
teacher of Science in the Presbyterian institution, 
Oglethorpe University of Georgia, suffered condem- 
nation by the Southern Presb3^terian Church because, 
though still professing Christianity, he dared adhere 
to the theory of evolution. Woodrow was not of the 
South, but his example serves to illustrate another 
handicap to mental progress. His influence on 
Lanier was great. 

Under the impetus of denominational pride, the 
minister became, in an indirect way, a local historian 
of some scope. Bishop Hawks (1798-1866), whose 
reputation stretched from Mississippi to New York, 
was the author of invaluable records of ecclesiastical 
history in Maryland and Virginia, besides being 
founder of the New York Review, to which Poe and 
Legare were contributors; Bishop Meade (1789- 
1862) left behind him a suggestive compilation, '' Old 
Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia." When 
civil war was declared, the former, though opposed 
to slavery, returned to his section — much to the regr'^t 
of his Northern admirers, — while the latter, in the de- 
bates preceding the struggle, was involved on the side 
of slavery. It is useless to add much more to this 
type of literature ; biographical data and incident 
form their chief value. The Virginia Baptists, im- 
mortalized by Semple, were counterbalanced by the 
Methodists in Bishop Fitzgerald's book; the Epis- 
copal Church in Virginia was not more important in 
the eyes of Dr. Frederick Dalcho than the Episcopal 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 227 

Church in South Carolina. Religion was not only 
denominational but local — history prescribed. It was 
the active and intimate intercourse of the men of 
each State among themselves, their similar training, 
habits, and practical interests, that drew them to- 
gether ; though endowed with characteristics typical of 
the South generally, their civic bearing and duty gave 
them differences in political temper, for example, no- 
where better seen than when the Southern senators 
withdrew from the Senate Chamber on the eve of the 
Civil War. Viewed in this light, as well as valued 
for their biographical convenience, such volumes as 
Reuben- Davis's " Recollections of Mississippi and 
Mississippians,'' and Miller's "Bench and Bar of 
Georgia " have significance. 

The historian has only indirectly touched upon the 
influence of New England on the Southern mind. 
Von Hoist suggests the effect upon Calhoun at the 
outset of his political career. On the other hand, 
the position occupied in Kentucky by George D. 
Prentice, with his Northern training and his Whig 
sympathies, opens a rich field for the consideration 
of those deep social workings which have effect upon 
the general temper of the state. Prentice went South 
on a political mission — to write for his party a life 
of Clay which would serve as a partisan pamphlet. 
He had hardly completed his task when he set in 
motion the Louisville Journal; through this me- 
dium, from 1840-1860, he wielded powerful influence 
for the Whigs in the South and Southwest, thus show- 
ing determined opposition to Jacksonian Democ- 
racy. Prentice had been editor before this and had 
exemplified how well he could make the New Eng- 
land Review serve as a political organ and as a liter- 
ary influence. Indeed, one of his biographers says 
with truth that this first venture was ** the Louis- 
ville Journal born in Connecticut." 



228 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Prentice's life was a peculiarly constituted one; 
we might designate him as the lonely man; for even 
during the life-time of his wife and sons, he found 
himself separated from them with regard to Southern 
sympathy. For Prentice was in ardent opposition 
to the war, and often visited Washington in the cause 
of the Union, while his son met death in the Con- 
federate ranks. One sees, in the volume of poems 
which Prentice left, the soft side of his nature which 
might be entirely lost by judging of the man through 
his pointed views, paper paragraphs and epigrams. 
But in those poems, it is clearly evident that locality 
had in turn its influence upon the New England tem- 
per; as serious art efforts, the verses may not have 
been highly valued by Prentice ; Col. Watterson notes 
that he treated them lightly. Nevertheless, they bear 
many of the distinguishing defects of Southern poetry. 

In his memorial address before the Kentucky leg- 
islature (1870), Col. Watterson called attention to 
Prentice's chief claim to distinction in the South. 
Like Greeley in the North, he was one of the last ex- 
ponents of *' personal journalism," where news was 
made subservient to the personality of the editor. 
Undoubtedly, it was Prentice's distinctive style which 
saved him in the untutored country of Kentucky on 
his arrival. Yankees were not graciously considered, 
and men settled differences of opinion with the gun. 
Bullets had no deterring effect on Prentice; he dis- 
approved of dueling and said so fearlessly in print, 
but still his brilliant wit, his sarcastic thrusts, his 
quick utilization of the moment went on. 

His paper was opposed by Shadrach Penn, of the 
Democratic party, who edited the Louisville Adver- 
tiser ; for twelve years, these two men bandied words, 
and whatever Penn wrote in his paragraph column 
was certain to come back on him threefold, with 
boomerang results. Finally Penn quitted the state, 




rii^M/i^ 



\x^jdU\MT^ 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 229 

not however, without the good-will of Prentice, who 
won for himself a distinguished place in Louisville. 
In 1859, he printed " Prenticeana " v/ith some mis- 
givings. Wit loses its freshness when detached from 
the occasion giving it birth, and Prentice's wit was not 
entirely removed from a personal liking for many of 
the figures he lampooned; but his humor was more 
general and fraught with more character than the 
ordinary newspaper paragraph. Despite the fact that 
his points were dependent upon what he called "par- 
tisan partiality,'' Prentice, like Lamb, had rich com- 
prehension of the rare use of wit. 

As a writer, he was rapid and continuously busy, 
keeping up a constant flow and retaining a surprising 
balance. He prepared large quantities of matter, as 
the mood prompted him; on the other hand, he looked 
elsewhere for notable literary contributions, and the 
Journal columns contained the names of Whittier, 
James Freeman Clarke, John Howard Payne, Mrs. 
L. H. Sigourney, Mrs. Amelia Welby, Alice and 
Phoebe Gary, and W. D. Howells. This distin- 
guished tone was retained by Col. Watterson, who 
succeeded Prentice, and who, despite the fact that 
the " personal journalism " had been superseded by 
the modern machinery of news-gathering, continued 
to stamp the editorial page with character, though its 
political influence waned. 

Whatever the mental activity, the pioneer local sense 
is uppermost; history is permeated with it in the ad- 
venturous record of David Crockett, and in the evolu- 
tion of Texas as followed in the career of Sam Hous- 
ton. In the Lower South, aristocratic traditions, 
brought into a free atmosphere, reacted upon crude 
environment in a genial manner, and the social status 
afforded rich material for a group of humorists who 
painted the scenes with no mean skill, using a species 
of fiction which was not very far removed from fact. 



230 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

It was a humor based wholly upon a full realization of 
locality; it was the sane element in an isolated and 
newly-opened territory, where, as Professor Shaler. 
pointed out, the " common law " had a struggle for 
existence with " the motives of the individual man." 
Such a fight was carried on until recent times, and is 
still heard of, between civil authority and the unwrit- 
ten law or primitive justice of the mountain people. 



II 

There are some grades of Southern humor in this 
ante-bellum period that are founded upon the truest 
sense of proportion, while others sink into low wit 
based upon rough, uncouth falsification of incident 
and character. Humor should mean sane balance; [ ^ 
it rests upon a complete understanding of the normal ' > 
life. Irving possessed that genial quality and so did 
Kennedy; but the former was unctuous in a broad 
degree, while the latter, in close kinship, was natural 
by reason of himself rather than because of reflected 
English qualities. But Joseph G. Baldwin (1815- 
1864) added to his innate humor a sound comprehen- 
sion of locality ; he brought to Alabama from Virginia 
certain preconceived notions which might have cut 
him aloof from the crude life of the state, had not 
his mind been flexible and his will yielding to new 
conditions. He was in the midst of that stream of 
emigration flowing southwest — ^Virginians, Carolin- 
ians, Georgians, and Tennesseeans on the move across 
the upper part of Alabama; in fact, Virginia gripped 
Alabama until the Civil War, leaving evidence of her 
influence in the names of counties. 

Huntsville and Tuscaloosa were the towns with 
some pretensions to culture. G. F. Mellen, examin- 
ing the status of this society, notes the pioneer element 
that mixed with the Virginia planter and lawyer who 



ANTE-BELLmi PERIOD 231 

dined, wined and played cards together. The pnbHc 
square was the rendezvous for Indian fighters, for 
lawyers more tuned to business than to law during 
" flush times," for astute men and profligates. It was 
not an easy field for jurisprudence, so mixed were the 
land claims, so uncontrollable the daring attitude of 
the settlers. Out of this state of things, nevertheless, 
grew a high type of judiciary, whose decisions were 
accounted of eminence. 

Baldwin came to Alabama in the typical style — on 
horseback through three states, with his possessions 
weighing down his saddle bags. From Mississippi, 
where he first encamped, he trailed to Gainesville, 
Georgia, where evidences of Yankee activity were to 
be seen. Sumter County was the rich center of Ala- 
bama, and Baldwin remained there from 1838 to 
1854, enjoying the political prestige the place main- 
tained. From his associates, he drew material which 
now is stored away in " Flush Times of Alabama and 
Mississippi." They were a genial set of lawmakers who 
would adjourn from court to " The Choctaw House " 
for jest and exchange of news. In the midst of 
democratic principles, Baldwin adhered to his Whig 
convictions, which destroyed his chances for political 
preferment, however popular he might otherwise have 
been. 

Baldwin's days ended in California (1864), where 
he had served as Judge of the Supreme Court; this 
change of residence may have been due to his disap- 
pointment over not receiving offlce, but more likely the 
gold fever of '49 had quite a little to do with his seek- 
ing another " flush time " experience. 

If one analyzes Baldwin's humor, which mostly re- 
lates to law, its fundamental note is kindliness, based 
on thorough sympathy; even though it is comical, it 
is also true; even though it is rollicking, it is not ir- 
reverent. Mr. Mellen comments on one essential fac- 



22,2 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tor in it — the absence of the denominational joke which 
was common in the Lower South — the cheap fun at 
the expense of Methodists and Baptists. " Flush 
Times " is a document full of vivid pictures ; not only 
has it the fresh sparkle of perennial character, but its 
local atmosphere is invaluable, now the civilization is 
gone!. 

We have already commented on " Party Leaders " 
and on its keen discrimination and unusual fairness 
of judgment. Baldwin was the historian with a deep 
sense of Hterary values ; at times his attitude was based 
on personal preference, but all the more valuable is 
this as data, in determining the. poHtical status of 
the period. His style often became efflorescent, his 
method picturesque, but always his approach was dig- 
nified. He did not give up these qualities when he 
turned humorist; he simply heightened them, adding 
those peculiarities which mark men as individual, 
welding small incident and small weakness together 
and giving them wide application. 

Time and place are the two elements in the soil 
of Southern humor; the weaknesses of lawyers are 
nowhere better seen than when placed where they can 
least resist circumstances ; '' flush times " in Alabama 
acted like a shower of rain to a parched field ; idiosyn- 
crasies sprang up on all sides. The strange blend 
of pioneer poverty with spendthrift bravado is what 
makes this type of literature worthy as human evi- 
dence. " Ovid Bolus, Esq./' is a sketch equal to Mark 
Twain at his best ; it is .redolent of the most delicate 
spirit of fine distinctions. Moliere could not have bet- 
ter placed Bolus than in these words : his " lying came 
from his greatness of soul and his comprehensiveness 
of mind. The truth was too small for him." Irv- 
ing's Knickerbocker is not more vivid, though as a 
general historical figure he is of more importance. 
Bolus stands as the quintessence of the attractive 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 233 

scamp; like Don Quixote, "all ideas were facts to 
him." Is there not meat for the imagination in such 
a flash as " his recklessness was, for the most part, 
lingual"? His failings were those of the people of 
Sumter County, simply through timely allusion satu- 
rating the dialogue; otherwise the conception touches 
humanity at large, — wherever humanity is weak. 

Baldwin's characterizations were exceptional; they 
bear no second-hand repetition; after reading them, 
one has a portrait and a sweep of local condition. The 
historian will never impress the " shinplaster " craze 
upon the mind as indelibly as Baldwin, in '' How the 
Times Served the Virginians " ; as a basis for thorough 
social understanding, I can find nothing to excel it in 
Southern literature; it represents diverse struggles of 
social interests — the conservative element through it 
all, opposing " paper fortunes " — the conservative ele- 
ment that has always existed in the South. Here, 
commercial fact is clad in human attractiveness; 
Baldwin's scoundrel lawyers, typified in Col. Simon 
^^SS^f were always kept within the pale of reason; 
one has ever a silent admiration for a smart scamp 
endowed with wit. As for the value of the humor, 
it is impossible to dismiss Baldwin's " oddities " 
Hghtly; beneath the crust of external peculiarity lies 
the rich substratum of social history. He saw fully and 
he laughed with effect; he was true in whole result, 
however broad the detail; his psychology was subtle, 
his method creative; situation grew out of character, 
and comment emanated from the clear-cut conception. 
Bolus suggests an actor; he is not cartoonish, like 
Florence's Bar dwell Slote or Raymond's Mulberry 
Sellers, but he is more typical of the rich vein of char- 
acter which marks American life. 

Here is the point of greatest difference between 
Baldwin and Judge Augustus B. Longstreet (1790- 
1870) : The latter dealt with the humor of situation, 



234 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of local transaction, of common life and of common 
habit. " Georgia Scenes " enjoyed a widespread pop- 
ularity, even though its author lived to regret its 
existence, when, after having passed through a varied 
career as lawyer, judge, poHtician, planter, lecturer, 
editor, and college president, his interest became 
deeply concerned in the ministry and in serious writ- 
ing. He is the true parent of later Georgian work 
from the pens of Richard Malcolm Johnston and Joel 
Chandler Harris, whose art became more polished, 
largely the reflection of a modification in the moral 
conditions of local life itself. For the chief value of 
" Georgia Scenes " is to be found in the vanished cus- 
tom it represents, the rough kindness, the crude pleas- 
ure it depicts. 

Longstreet's preface contains the usual apology of 
the newspaper humorist — that his sketches were too de- 
pendent upon the element of timeliness ever to obtain 
attention from later readers; he claims for them that 
they are '^ nothing more than fanciful combinations of 
real incidents and characters," based upon personal ex- 
perience. They came to light in the usual manner, 
through his own gazette, the Augusta Sentinel, in 
1835 ; their excellence lies in the pungent minuteness 
of their detail, dealing as they do with men and women 
of the lower and louder order. Longstreet attempted 
to be real; he warned his readers that if at times his 
language became " coarse, inelegant, and sometimes 
ungrammatical," " it is language accommodated to the 
capacity of the person to whom he represents himself 
as speaking." 

In " Georgia Scenes " one is transplanted to a primi- 
tive community, childish in thought and action. These 
separate sketches were signed in different manner, 
Hall being responsible for masculine delineation, Bald- 
win for feminine — and both showing about the same 
amount of rustic spirit, relieved of conventions and 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 235 

prompted by the camaraderie of children. Here one 
obtains local color in quantity; not merely in the type 
of mind, but in the habit and custom of economic, 
social, and political life. Each sketch is typical, 
couched in language that has flavor of the open; oc- 
casionally there are flashes of sentiment after the man- 
ner of Thackeray, and sometimes the faithful accuracy 
in recording outward detail results in a brutal quality 
that is common among rustic folk ; " The Gander Pull- 
ing " exemplifies this last quality. The psychology 
of these " Georgia Scenes " is more violent than that 
to which Baldwin was accustomed, but it is kept in 
proportion by the exactitude with which the outward 
facts are recorded. In the future, anyone who would 
have a faithful portraiture of the Georgia Cracker will 
have to turn to " Georgia Scenes " ; the style is not 
distinctive^ but the material is significant, for the old 
order changes, giving place to new. 

Still, Southern humor could not escape the special 
" funny man." Such writing flourishes upon news- 
paper support, yet not quite in the same manner as the 
comic sheet which satisfies a popular demand; for 
though Thompson's Major Jones performs the most 
absurd deeds, they are not wholly irreconcilable with 
his character; they are not violently distorted. When 
there is coarseness or vulgarity, the reason is either 
rough character or primitive condition ; it was as nat- 
ural for the Georgia Cracker to be uncouth, as it was 
customary for him at the same time to show himself 
possessed of fine feeling and loyalty. 

These writers who delineated special types were 
forerunners of the present local author. They were 
usually engaged in the legal profession or in duty 
apart from their humorous talent. They were men 
closely in touch with their time, founding newspapers, 
and accomplishing an infinite variety of things. Au- 
thorship again became a side issue. William Tappan 



236 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Thompson (1812-1882) did not concentrate his ener- 
gies; in the midst of his varied efforts in poHtics, in 
law, in a Philadelphia newspaper office, he would prob- 
ably never have turned his attention to such writing 
as he began to do, had he not associated himself with 
Judge Longstreet on the Augusta Sentinel. Never 
stationary, he dropped the seeds of journalism in many 
small Georgia towns, meanwhile winning reputation 
with Major Jones, who afterwards filled three vol- 
umes with his adventures. Thompson was a soldier, 
a dramatist, an editor of law books. In view of this. 
Major Jones is all the more remarkable as a type 
created under special conditions. The broad humor is 
genial, its one great fault being a lack of contrast in 
the fun. As an index of the moment, the sketches de- 
serve closer acquaintance ; the art of the author la}^ in 
the power of appreciation he developed for the minor 
notes in thought and action. 

Johnson Jones Hooper (1815-1862) won renown 
by developing the son of Simon Suggs, whom Bald- 
win sketched in " Flush Times " ; a rascal around 
whom circulated a large part of the lowly life of Ala- 
bama. G. W. Harris (1814-1868) created Sut I.oven- 
good of Tennessee; Charles H. Smith (1823-1903), a 
Georgian of a little later period, identified himself 
with Bill Arp, even as closely as Mr. Dunne has with 
Mr. Dooley, for the definite purpose, as he said in the 
preface, of detracting the mind '' from the momentous 
and absorbing interests of the war." The very value 
of all this local humor, as Smith claims, lies in the fact 
that though *' sideshows," the incidents form " an in- 
dex to our feelings and sentiments." It is of interest 
to note here how these men painfully practiced the art 
of dialect which marked the poor white of the South, 
leaving, until the advent of Joel Chandler Harris, the 
true tone and color of the negro speech. When he 
came to gathering together the war wisdom of Sut 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 237 

Lovengood, Smith found it necessary to prune the pe- 
cuHarity of his " unlettered countryman," to remodel 
the orthography, believing that his humor would be 
better understood, even though the outward marks of 
his person were thus changed. Certainly his writing, 
if not generally typical of high humor, displays a tem- 
per, the measure of Southern strain. 

As there was the humor of " flush times,'' so there 
was the nervous humor of camp life ; the pioneer, rep- 
resented by Davy Crockett, possessed a quaintness 
comparable in some respects to the kindliness of the 
colonial author. Colonel William Byrd, though not 
seasoned with any of Byrd's aristocratic grace. The 
geniality of the Lower South did not over-shadow the 
Mods Addunis of the Virginian, Dr. George William 
Bagby (1828- 1883), who had newspaper and maga- 
zine experience, which gave him an opportunity of de- 
veloping a local slang as marked in a way as that of 
George Ade, or of others of the Indiana school. Bagby 
gives a view of life in Virginia which, coupled with 
the studies of Mr. Page, preserves some of the rare 
characteristics of the State. Like his contemporaries, 
he mixes the incongruous with sage philosophy. 

To-day, these ante-bellum humorists are hardly 
known; their books, out of print, no longer circulate 
in libraries, and we let slip a deal of true humanity 
because the timely event is passed. If Bagby is known 
at all to the general reader, it is because his famous 
" Jud Brownin's Account of Rubinstein's Playing " 
graces some recitation book. And even though the 
name of Hooper's hero, Simon Suggs of the Talla- 
poosa Volunteers, is familiar to Southern ears, the 
reader is more likely to remember this author's farcical 
description of " Taking the Census," apart from who 
took it. 

The timeliness of this humor has an earlier example 
in Brackenridge's " Modern Chivalry," which, re- 



238 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

counting the adventures of a Captain and Teague 
O' Regan, after the manner of " Don Quixote," con- 
tained many social touches typical of the period of 
Clay and Crawford. 

This particular species of literature in the South is 
strictly of the soil, marking the condition. It is spon- 
taneous, the outward expression of an innate realiza- 
tion of local need ; it is framed in the light of political 
occurrence, of social condition, mental and economic. 
It is strictly American in the broader sense of national 
flexibility of character; it is strictly Southern in its 
use of temperament and environment. 



CHAPTER X 
PIONEER NOVELISTS 

SiMMs, Kennedy, Tucker, and Carruthers 

The pioneer novelists in the South present interest- 
ing contrasts, even though their sentiment is of the 
same color, and their delineation of character is after 
the! same manner. From the historical viewpoint, in 
their opinions they are indicative of how far conditions 
affected the imagination of the author ; from the social 
viewpoint, they represent a stereotyped formality 
which gave charm to bearing, however much it 
prompted inconsistency of action ; from the standpoint 
of literary species, they exemplify the influence of 
their restricted culture and of their particular tastes. 

The vitality of any biography is to be found in the' 
vividness with which the subject lives; the study of 
literature should, after all, be made a broad, active field 
of association; Cooper, the novelist, cannot be sepa- 
rated from Cooper, the man. If you reduce the consid- 
eration to a physical plane, the vigor of a man's style 
depends upon his outlook ; his whole nature is a prod- 
uct of the very air he breathes, of the very trail he fol- 
lows, of the very events which confront him. 

These pioneer novelists lived in the formative period 
of American life; when Cooper first made the trip to 
Detroit, people considered the venture an unusual un- 
dertaking, for beyond that place all was primeval for- 
est. William Gilmore Simms, in the South, possessed 
the same scope of vision; he did for the South and 
Southwest what Cooper did for the North — that is, 

239 



240 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

caught the evanescent atmosphere of an unfrequented 
country, recorded the rough, simple customs of iso- 
lated people, and impressed upon a canvas, redolent 
with savage uncouthness, the spirit of heroic senti- 
ment. 

Yet in the contrast of Cooper and Simms, it is re- 
markable that the latter fails to rise to the height of 
the former, though his work, taken in detail, exhibits 
him equally as inventive, as observant, and as con- 
scious of historical development. Simms had large 
faults; the rapidity with which he worked made him 
careless, forced him into contradictory statement and 
conflicting description. He was more violent than 
Cooper, more prone to make use of the melodramatic. 
But, on the other hand, his lights and shades were 
more evenly distributed, and his middle-class " pio- 
neer," so to speak, more typical and unusual. His In- 
dians were marked with more of the savage qualities— 
a characteristic which often forced Simms, in a graphic 
style, to resort to the revolting, typical examples of 
which are to be found in " The Yemassee." 

Professor Trent's Hfe of William Gilmore Simms 
is far more than a mere record of biographical events ; 
it follows the course of Southern civilization through 
his career (1806-1870), adding a commentary, the 
whole of which results in a vivid and just view of 
Southern limitations. Nothing can be more tempting 
for a biographer of Simms than to lay stress upon 
the consuming aristocratic prejudice in Charleston, 
which made the social life falsely conservative, and 
against which Simms struggled bravely for recogni- 
tion. 

The many events in his life are not so varied — the 
usual struggles and reaching out for a vocation; the 
usual mistaken estimates of his own powers, seen in 
his disappointment that as a novelist he overshadowed 
himself as a poet, and also in his regret that political 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 241 

preferment was denied him. Notwithstanding his 
numerous contentions with prejudice and with men 
who stood in his way, Hke Crafts and Legare, Simms 
won his place in a fair fight, and famiHarized himself 
with South Carolina so thoroughly that few could ex- 
cel him in his grasp of history. Like most of his con- 
temporaries, his career in authorship is somewhat 
identified with the rise and fall of those Southern 
periodicals which never took root in Southern soil, 
since the soil was never prepared for them. Were we 
to examine closely enough, we might be able to show 
how Simms, at first ardently opposing nullification 
while he was editor of the City Gazette, later, to use 
Professor Trent's expression, " squinted strongly in 
Calhoun's direction." In truth, Simms was distinc- 
tively Southern, despite the fact that his visits to the 
North and his friendships there aided him in his lit- 
erary progress. He began as a Union supporter, with 
a firm belief in states' rights ; one must know the po- 
litical status to understand how this seemingly contra- 
dictory civic faith could be in 1832. But by 1849, 
Simms was no longer a Union man, and his reason for 
change is a part of the history of secession in South 
Carolina. In his arguments on the subject of slavery, 
Simms is rather an average example of the average 
opinion held, than a brilliant supporter of the cause; 
he fell into many absurdities, but was not alone in this 
respect. A very excellent gauge of his political temper 
is found in his correspondence with Beverley Tucker, 
who lent him assistance on the Southern Quarterly, 
and who in his person symbolized the extreme sup- 
port of states' rights. 

And sp, having once determined that secession was 
inevitable, that a confederacy already existed in spirit, 
if not in name, Simms threw himself energetically into 
the coming storm. Though not as keen a conspirator 
as Tucker, who always sought to " shatter the Union," 



242 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

yet Simms ardently longed for conformity of senti- 
ment in the South. South Carolina had once tried se- 
cession, and the South had not stood by her in 1833; 
what would she do in 1850? "Were South Carolina 
to secede," he wrote, " her ports would be blocked up, 
her trade would pass to Georgia, and the appeal to 
Georgia cupidity, filled as that State is with Yankee 
traders, would be fatal to her patriotism." This in- 
terstate jealousy, as well as the political differences 
among the Southern people themselves, was a weak- 
ness the Southern Confederacy did not count upon. 
As Simms became more and more keen on the sub- 
ject, unrelieved by any humor, his eye grew jaun- 
diced, and he could see no good in Northern activity, 
damning the whole New England school of writers, 
and denying them the capacity for art since they had 
shown such a capacity for abolitionism. 

So deeply concerned was Simms in the issue, that 
he personally was changed by the whole trend of 
events ; in a sense he became the successor of Tucker 
in public influence, and when he went to New York 
to lecture, he reaped the full effect of his outspoken 
defiance of the North. Sometimes, in the preface to 
his novels, he rated his critics soundly, though not as 
terribly as Cooper did through his life. But now, 
Simms, super-sensitive, began to imagine the North 
wholly antagonistic to him; he was too heated to sum- 
mon before, him the countless advantages his literary 
career had reaped from that section ; he did not wholly 
see that in the Savannah Convention of 1856, when 
Southern educational books were being discussed, and 
when he was ignored as a member of the committee 
on literature, the South had often before shown 
him neglect, where the North had given him recogni- 
tion. During this period of tension, Simms barely 
escaped being a fire-eater. 

Professor Lounsbury, having reached the reaction- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 243 

ary period in his " Life " of Cooper, claimed that the 
author of Leatherstocking did not keep up with the 
rapid growth of the country. Some may claim that a 
man reaches the crest of his nature and advances no 
farther, but either remains stationary, seeing the hori- 
zon further and further off, or else relinquishes his po- 
sition with the weakening of his powers. This is partly 
true of the whole ante-bellum South ; having reached 
a point, mentally and socially, the people stood still, 
the only unstable position being the economic problem, 
which was threatened from outside. But when actual 
war devastated the land, it was no longer time for 
political hesitation ; it was a matter of loyalty to home 
that brought the Southerner to the ranks. Simms 
could not fight — his physical weakness prevented that ; 
but with his pen he displayed a directive genius that 
was exceptional, and he gave suggestions which, 
though often ignored, were none the less measure 
of his excitement, and of his keen observation. 
Cooper's accounts of the navy are not more distinctive 
than Simms' data relating to the Civil War, especially 
his pamphlet on the " Sack and Destruction of the 
City of Columbia, S. C." He was in the midst of fire 
and conflagration, and, during the ordeal, his own 
"Woodlands," scene of many a literary conclave and 
of much family peace, was burned to the ground. 
There came a time in the war when the best element 
of the South tried to put a stop to the charred trail 
of razed homesteads, and to the mounds with the 
unknown dead; when every family could point to its 
vacant place, and realize that, after all, the cause was 
not sufficiently strong for such sacrifice. For the far 
horizon was moving further away, and the nations 
of the earth were advancing, while the South re- 
mained behind. Simms' feelings were not in any way 
appeased when he saw around him the suffering of 
his literary friends — Timrod, Hayne, and others in 



244 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the midst of reconstruction. With Hayne, particu- 
larly, he was most in correspondence during these 
last years. 

A detailed account of Simms' activity is out of the 
question here; an examination of Professor Trent's 
partial bibliography will not only convey some idea of 
the variety of his activity in the various departments 
of literature, but also of his interest in the widely sep- 
arate territorial places described. For in his romances 
he has touched every one of the Southern States, and 
while the local colors are all uneven, there are pas- 
sages of historical and of natural force, however much 
they may lack true atmosphere. Simms was skillful 
in invention ; he could not escape being dull at times, 
for he wrote too persistently to maintain an even style. 
Yet we must confess that the activity of his plots often- 
times is a means of disguising the slovenliness of his 
style. 

No doubt, being so prolific, he watched the literary 
market and often followed in the footsteps of literary 
success, but he was never a servile imitator. Though 
there is no denying his closeness to Cooper in many 
respects, his treatment is individual and more varied ; 
"The Partisan " was suggested by the reception given 
to Kennedy's " Horse-Shoe Robinson." Simm.s was 
lacking in repression ; not only was he prone to des- 
cant upon the disagreeable, but he often made use of 
the newspaper sensationalism which takes as its proper 
province the exploitation of relentless immorality. 
'' Beauchampe " and "Charlemont" are of such char- 
acter. 

Much that Simms did is well worth considering. 
Biographer, historian, poet, dramatist, essayist, re- 
viewer, editor — he was one of the first examples of 
the professional literary man in the South; the neces- 
sity for looking toward the future made him plan 
scenes of romances, which, though complete in them- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 245 

selves, carried the characters forward from one book 
to the other. Distracting interests often intervened 
between the writing of these, and to this lack of suc- 
cession may be due some of the careless discrepancies 
in detail. But, in estimating Simms, the student needs 
to consider his work in bulk — no mean record — and 
to note the descriptions of custom and the autobio- 
graphical flashes. For, even as Simms claimed that 
the defeat of his political aspirations drove him to 
literature and away from law, where he only earned 
a pittance, so his struggles in Charleston developed in 
his writing those democratic sentiments which were 
always uppermost when he described a backwoods 
crowd, or a forest congregation listening to a circuit 
rider. 

There are small expressions dotting every page of 
" Guy Rivers," one of the "border romances," indica- 
tive of time and place ; the trial of a Yankee peddler, 
the stump orator, a hold-up in the " wilds," an account 
of the regulators, pictures of squatter settlements — 
these are the details in which Simms excelled. He 
made use of them in a realistic manner, stepping aside 
from his conscious role of novelist to narrate vividly 
some incident of minor worth, and then resuming his 
task by using such phrases as "with the recognized 
privilege of the romancer." 

After the manner of the time, Simms often resorted 
to the moral lecture, to the admonitory tone; his 
method of creating suspense was to force a pause in 
the narrative and to argue philosophically while fate 
hung in the balance, an old device — and only a device 
after all. He made frequent use of the archaic form, 
and so easily could he manufacture startling situations 
that he lost control of probability, and, as in the case of 
Bess Matthews, heroine of "The Yemassee," show- 
ered startling incident heavily upon her. His stories 
hang loosely, though they are none the less entertain- 



2'46 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ing ; the romancer of the day was stilted in phraseology 
— words which represent broad outward expression 
rather than inward subtle distinction; that is strictly 
the melodramatist's prerogative. Man is humbled 
'neath a woman's scorn on one page, while, on the 
next, the same maiden's lips might tremble because 
of some advantage taken of her woman's weakness. 
The local sense in Simms was strong; his tendency 
to report faithfully what he had seen detracted from 
the inspirational quality in his romances; he was 
rough, hasty, but none the less observant, turning to 
excellent account the luxuriance of nature; his natural 
history was gleaned from direct association, his 
gathering of tradition was successful through personal 
effort, his knowledge of border life came through 
border travel. As Professor Trent has emphasized, 
Simms appeared at a moment when something new 
was wanted in the American novel, among readers 
who had tired of Paulding and of Bird; he adopted 
the traditions of Scott and of Cooper; he was influ- 
enced by Godwin ; his preface to " Martin Faber " 
(1834) placed him at once in that class of authors who 
resented the average reviewer. His friendships, with 
Forrest, the actor, on one hand, helped further to 
increase his attachment to the theater, and with Bryant 
and Duyckinck on the other, increased his prominence 
as the leading Southern author. Simms possessed the 
strength of the story-teller, tinged with the morbid, 
which is an essential characteristic of melodrama. For 
that reason, Poe was partly attracted to him. Even 
though, when the " Partisan" first appeared, he spent 
much space in indicating the artistic blunders of the 
new author, Poe unerringly caught some of Simms' 
chief excellences: his graphic historical detail, the 
exquisite descriptions of swamp scenery, the effective 
eye of the painter. He sounded likewise the chief de- 
fect of the Southern historical novelist : more surety in 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 247 

the " sober truth " than in " constructive imagination " 
— no doubt a chief element in the historic sense. But 
his eye as a painter did not prevent him from often 
committing mistakes which, to Poe's mind, fell little 
short of bad taste, even though he rated Simms next 
to Cooper among American novelists. 

Kennedy was the senior of Simms by eleven years 
(1795-1870), though their active literary lives may be 
said to have embraced the same period. The one had 
much of the geniality of Irving ; the other, as we have 
said, much of the masculinity and irritability of 
Cooper; they both did much for the history of the 
South in preserving data of social value. Kennedy 
gained that political recognition which .Simms most 
desired; Simms lived in part the literary life which 
Kennedy's public services prevented him from doing. 
The latter was not handicapped at the outset by the 
necessity of combating class prejudice, since the Pen- 
dletons were a long line, distinguished in Virginia 
history. With this advantage, with a keen sense of 
humor inherited from his father, with a good educa- 
tion had from Baltimore College, and with a fairly 
easy road to travel, circumstances put much in Ken- 
nedy's way to hasten his quick rise. 

There was left among his papers an excellently told 
story of his early life, as genially written as his narra- 
tive of the career of Wirt; in it, one notes a charac- 
teristic of the pioneer, — a topographical knowledge of 
the country which the convenience of the railroad has 
now obliterated; it was rarely that Kennedy and his 
horse were parted. These youthful explorations of his, 
serving him later in his writing, and in his wanderings 
with Washington Irving, likewise accustomed him to 
various hardships which he hoped for in a roman- 
tic vein, when the War of 18 12 began. 

But though he saw service just after he graduated, 
it was a light enough affair, and the description is re- 



248 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

plete with excellent good nature. After this excite- 
ment subsided, Kennedy settled down to the existence 
which Baltimore afforded ; it was not a markedly liter- 
ary center like Charleston; its people were more con- 
cerned about manufactures and trade than about cul- 
ture; the bar and the press were the centers for any 
spirit pertaining to the cultivation of letters. With 
Kennedy's growth in influence, there was a like in- 
crease in the direction which always elicited his deep- 
est concern ; he was regarded by the older men as part 
of that infusion of new blood of which the commu- 
nity was most in need ; he gained confidence much be- 
yond his years in weight and dignity ; largely this was 
granted him through charm of personality, but as well 
through assiduous application. 

His first literary attempt was "The Red Book," 
which he and a friend conceived in the spirit of Irv- 
ing's and Paulding's " Salmagundi." A bright, 
youthful mixture was this of essay and verse, but the 
publication soon ceased, and Kennedy found himself, 
in 1820, elected to the legislature of Maryland. There- 
after, his interest in public matters consumed a large 
proportion of his energies. 

Shortly after his first marriage in 1824, Kennedy's 
wife died, and five years later he was married 
to a Miss Gray, whose father was owner of Ellicott's 
Mills, which figure so prominently in Kennedy's life. 
Political activity kept the latter away from home much 
of his time, but presented him with the opportunity of 
a correspondence fraught with good sense, keen senti- 
ment, and unctuous appreciation of events. During this 
period he was enjoying the confidence of Henry Clay. 

In the midst of his ofiicial activity, Kennedy found 
time to write " Swallow Barn," a series of sketches 
after the manner of the Queen Anne essayists, and 
flavored with the same quaintness found in Irving's 
"Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge Hall." The fact 




^ jyt^.^^J/ 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 249 

is, the pages are fairly saturated with the rare charm 
of Virginia Hfe, and there is small wonder that the 
time should come when Thackeray, in the midst of 
writing " The Virginians/' would ask Kennedy to 
prepare a chapter of that novel for him; there is no 
direct evidence that this was done, but nevertheless it 
shows how closely Kennedy's sympathy lay to the quiet 
environment of his early days. Tuckerman claims 
with much truth that "the artistic process of minute 
and patient delineation adopted by Mr. Kennedy in 
* Swallow Barn/ is identical with that which pre- 
serves to us so vividly the country life of England in 
Jane Austen's day, and the ecclesiastical of our own 
as photographed by Trollope/' 

In some respects, we may say that Mr. Page is 
Kennedy's successor in the presentation of a passing 
atmosphere, but he does not saturate his scenes so 
thoroughly with the essence of external peace and 
quiet. The reviews of " Swallow Barn " greeted cor- 
dially its unknown author, yclept Mark Littleton ; they 
saw in the book genuine feeling, though they realized 
that its originality consisted in the quietness and 
human manner of treatment, rather than in uniqueness 
of subject. For life in Virginia had been the first 
thought of most of her sons, even from Jefferson in 
his " Notes " and Wirt in his " Letters," to Northern 
travelers and foreign visitors. Indeed, the attraction 
held out by such a life to the contemplative style, 
has handicapped all progressive movement among 
Virginia writers, even making them loath to rise 
above conventional phrases by which that life is rec- 
ognized. 

" Swallow Barn " is not a novel in the unified sense ; 
it is replete with minute observation, tempered by a 
philosophical desire to indicate the value of that 
humanity threatened by the changes of advancing 
time. The text is warm with the beauty of Southern 



250 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

life, but there is a fairness in Kennedy's view that rec- 
ognizes the limitations as well as the excellences ; the 
author was too much of the cosmopolitan to lose, 
sight of this. Kennedy's style is attractive and full 
of the personal element that is friendly and genial; 
in the deep sense he is humorous, and as his richness 
comes from the root of character rather than from dis- 
tortion of motive and falsification of situation, he 
is never tiresome. Had he been content with the 
straight essay form, he might have equaled Irving, 
and been more thoroughly suggestive of Lamb. He 
was largely affected by the literary fashions of the 
day, and could not escape the just accusation that he 
was imitative ; in his " fable " he reflects Scott, par- 
ticularly in the heroine of " Swallow Barn," Bel 
Tracy, whose hoydenish manner smacks somewhat of 
Diana Vernon, In his subjects, as well as in the method 
of treatment, the comparison between Irving and 
himself is striking. He was imitative, much more so 
than Simms, but his distinctive excellence was his 
sane outlook, largely a matter of personal disposition. 
" Horse-Shoe Robinson " ( 1836) was the next w^ork 
from Kennedy's pen ; in it were combined two qualities 
which marked his life — his love of nature and his 
historic sense. In a way, the story bears evidence of 
a familiarity with Cooper as well as with Scott; its 
hero had a counterpart in real life, a method the early 
novelists had of drawing fully upon the actual. 
Horse-Shoe Robinson, the backwoodsman, is as re- 
markable in a way as Leatherstocking, but he is 
little known to the present generation. Twenty years 
after his appearance, when the American stage was 
filled with crude attempts at the portrayal of Amer- 
ican character, Kennedy's hero was acted by James 
H. Hackett, who had at various times brought the 
work of James K. Paulding and Washington Irving 
to the theater. On witnessing^ the first performance. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 251 

Kennedy's verdict was : " It is amazingly noisy, and 
full of battles, and amuses the gallery hugely." 

"Horse-Shoe Robinson" is a type of book that 
is full of incident and of South Carolina history; it 
is not sustained in interest, but has definite sections 
where the action is spirited and where the style is 
vivid. One may understand the frequency with which 
the reviewers applied the word " study " to these ante- 
bellum novels, with their intimate knowledge of the 
ground covered, and with their historic sense. Time 
having changed the novelist in a reaction against ro- 
manticism, these authors are remembered by certain 
passages rather than by the force of the whole work. 
Note, for example, Kennedy's oft-quoted descrip- 
tion of the Revolutionary battle of King's Mountain 
in North Carolina. 

Save for the "Life of Wirt" (1849), which is 
an excellent narrative with many autobiographical 
touches, the other writings of Kennedy are not dis- 
tinctive. "Rob of the Bowl" (1838) describes 
graphically the ancient capital of Maryland; "The 
Annals of Quodlibet" (1840) is indicative of the 
author's political tastes and of his realization of party 
weaknesses, but is lacking in his characteristic charm ; 
"The Ambrose Letters on the Rebellion" (1865), 
read in connection with the war record arranged in 
Tuckerman's life, evinces Kennedy's strong Union 
sympathies, and his desire to end the conflict; his 
political and official papers gathered together show his 
thoroughness and conscientiousness in official mat- 
ters. But the lovableness of the man himself is 
nowhere better seen than in his diaries and letters 
upon which Tuckerman amply draws — those varying 
lights and shades that are a combination of a youthful 
heart and a sound brain. 

Literary history does not emphasize Kennedy's aid 
given to Morse's telegraphic experiments, or, during 



252 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

his tenure of office as Secretary of the Navy under 
Fillmore, his encouragement of the Kane expedition 
(1852-3). Of more importance still, sufficient stress 
is not put upon his efforts to improve Baltimore by 
the establishment of a free library, of a museum of 
art, and of free lectures. An interesting chapter 
might alone be devoted to his energetic eft'orts in be- 
half of the Peabody Institute, v^hich serve to add his 
name to the list of Southerners, beginning with James 
Blair, who held a broad view of education, which had 
to struggle against social restrictions and economic 
claims. Kennedy was President of the Institute in 
1870, and his last report rings with that progressive 
energy which we are to note in Lanier — ^the first 
Southern research worker in a national sense. 

In Kennedy, there was no sectional narrowness, 
though in all he did he exhibited his Southern train- 
ing; his manner, his bearing, his attitude toward the 
deeper problems of life, his kindliness and gentle 
adaptability in social circjes, were shaped by environ- 
ment. He was in no way a poseur or a dictator; he 
led by force of personality. 

Yet despite his wide intercourse, and his intimacy 
with Thackeray, Cooper, and Irving, the one name 
that will help to identify Kennedy in a popular way is 
Po^. 

In the case of SImms and Kennedy, there is much 
in the lives to explain the literature ; the conclusion is 
again reached that the life is greater than the product 
— a product which, as Woodberry declares of Simms, 
is " raw material which has both historical and 
human worth.'' This is the chief claim that Na- 
thaniel Beverley Tucker's ( 1784-185 1) "The Par- 
tisan Leader " has upon the present, as indicating by its 
being "secretly printed in Washington (in the year 
1836) . . . for circulation in the Southern 
States — but afterwards suppressed," how clearly the 



\A 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 253 

Rebellion was forecast in a moment when Seces- 
sion leaders were not strong enough to rush the South 
into war. But Tucker wrote with a purpose; the 
italicized portions of his story, breathing defiance, hate, 
and suspicion, clearly indicate that his novel was a 
text-book of rebellion in disguise, prompted in the 
spirit of Calhoun — with none of his genius. From 
such a hot-bed, the fire-eater of the South was born. 

But though " The Partisan Leader " looks forward, 
its manner looks backward ; courtesy and ferocity are 
curiously blended; the author attempts at moments 
to codify surface conventions. The tone of the book 
is prompted by blind prejudice, and while it is natural 
that its model should be Cooper, it is curious that 
a Virginia lawyer, a professor of law, about the time 
that his State was most anxious to do away with 
the institution of slavery, should reflect the violent 
temper of South Carolina. 

The book is an historical document crudely told, 
but manifesting Southern temper with exceptional 
energy. Its author belonged to a long line; of literary 
devotees. 

A study of the ante-bellum novel will show it to be 
largely devoid of original idea, but full of the his- 
torical and local quality. The authors, with the ex- 
ception of Simms and Poe, wrote leisurely, and did 
not have the incentive which tends to produce the best 
work. Beverley Tucker was more the lawyer than 
the novelist; William Carruthers (1806- 1872) was 
chiefly the Virginia physician. The historical field 
was untilled from the very beginning, and when the 
Civil War broke forth, the novelist was still working 
among colonial remains, which in the different states 
afforded ample local phases. Wherever the author 
traveled, there he was sure of experiences which he 
made the basis of a romance. Tucker was judge in 
Missouri from 181 5 till 1830; hence his novel " George 



254 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Balcombe." Always the life explains the Southern 
author. 

The local sense and the historical sense were not 
balanced in the ante-bellum novel, but they were ever 
present. Carruthers's '' Cavaliers of Virginia " and 
" Knights of the Horseshoe " are typical examples of 
the average appreciation of local history in the times 
of Berkeley and Spots wood. 



CHAPTER XI 

SOUTHERN POETRY AND THE CAVALIER 
SPIRIT 

In order to be seen advantageously, the verse of the 
ante-bellum Southern school must be considered in the 
bulk, as being built upon Southern tradition, and as 
being limited by the economic, social, and spiritual 
life of the Southern people. All that has been said of 
the restricting influences upon the character and men- 
tal attitude of the section, served to affect the poetry. 
The importance attached to the local singer was a con- 
sistent outcome of the individualism of the Southern 
planter — an individualism brought more prominently 
into being by the ** peculiar institution," and by that 
territorial isolation which was encouraged through the 
increasing cultivation of cotton. As the Southern ora- 
tor had his classical models, so the Southern poet, 
passionate and romantic, reflected Goldsmith, Byron 
and Moore. Southern poetasters sharpened their ap- 
petites upon " Lalla Rookh " as keenly as they did 
later upon "Lucile." 

Population not being compact, the centers of lit- 
erary activity worked apart; one finds compilations 
known as " The Baltimore Book," " The Charleston 
Book," and " The New Orleans Book," a species 
which was as plentiful in the South as the " Garlands " 
became in the North. The early period of our Ameri- 
can letters was marked by efforts to enforce the 
recognition of the American author. Griswold, Duyc- 
kinck, Keese, and others of like character, attempted, 
with commendable literary autocracy, to measure the 

255 



256 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

worth of the product. Their discrimination is of his- 
torical value, and also of indirect creative value in 
drawing fire from Poe, one of our most interesting 
early critics, whose genius dealt unerringly with his 
contemporaries, whenever he could free himself from 
fitful moods. 

The secondary consideration paid to literature in the 
South was one of the reasons for this lack of creative 
expression which we find in the field of poetry. It 
has been said, and not unwisely, that had the New 
England school been placed in a similar environment, 
it would have responded to conditions in the same man- 
ner. To be a poet, one has to consecrate the better 
part of one's life to the task, and not alone wait until 
the spirit moves to utter a personal feeling or to give 
a personal impression. One has to serve apprentice- 
ship, and this the Southerner, true to his economic 
training, would not do, even in art matters. When- 
ever his mind was involved, he was concerned with 
practical problems; his religion did not disturb him 
because it was largely a bequeathment ; he was not free 
to utter his belief in the broadening principles of life, 
since the spirit of slavery overshadowed all activity 
around him. Though he might give stray impressions 
of the effect of nature upon himself ; though he might, 
with the romancer's love of legend, preserve in verse 
a local incident, there was little left for him to do 
spontaneously than to sing, and even in his lyrics he 
was not creative, but rather reflective of Lovelace, 
Suckling, and Herrick. 

Mr. Stedman's theory regarding Poe is original ; he 
claims, in his " Poets of America," that this man whose 
one mood dominated all his work, whose whole being 
was sensitive to sound, " caught the music of * Anna- 
bel Lee ' and * Eulalie,' if not their special quality, from 
the plaintive, melodious negro songs utilized by those 
early writers of * minstrelsy,' who have been denomi- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 2t;j 

nated the only composers of a genuine American 
school." The plantation melody shall be considered 
later, the true song which was turned to such excellent 
effect by the early minstrel impersonators on the 
American stage; tribal chants which are back of 
Stephen C. Foster's ''Uncle Ned/' *'Massa's in the 
Cold, Cold Ground," and '' Old Black Joe." There 
are three stages of the negro minstrelsy: the primi- 
tive inheritance, the simple song which has drawn in- 
spiration from the early form, and the imitation which 
is a perversion, falling into mawkish sentiment. It is 
difficult to believe unreservedly that Poe was indebted 
to such sources for his melody; at least, not con- 
sciously, for what he did with forethought, found 
record in his written analyses of his own poetic theory. 

It is one of the graces of literary criticism to say 
that though the Southerner may have lacked control 
of his art method, he was at least a natural singer ; this 
opinion is based on the fallacy that the South was 
dominated by the Cavalier Spirit. The lack of any 
pronounced aesthetic excellence during the so-called 
National Era was due to the purely practical trend of 
public life, and to the purely rural and provincial char- 
acter of plantation routine. In all directions, save that 
which involved the whole safety of the economic sys- 
tem, life flowed in unchangeable channels; the sur- 
face was not ruffled by competition, for Southern life 
had become an agreeable habit. A casual literature is 
not lasting ; strength — mental, moral, and physical — is 
dependent upon activity. The Southern writers, who 
stand above the mediocre level of the literary output, 
were those who had to turn North for a market ; there 
they were subject to the same difficulties that con- 
fronted the publishers of the day ; Simms and Kennedy 
fought for the copyright protection as persistently as 
did Cooper and Irving. 

From the historical viewpoint, between the Revolu- 



258 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tionary poets and the larger galaxy of the Civil War, 
very few balladists rose upon the wave of struggle in 
1812, or composed verses on the annexation of Texas 
and the difficulties with Mexico. The Marylander, 
Francis Scott Key (1780- 1843), "^^t the occasion at 
an imminent crisis of public anxiety, and penned, in an 
overflow of patriotic zeal, " The Star-spangled Ban- 
ner," which is hallowed because of its acceptance as 
the national anthem, but which, notwithstanding, is 
less poetry than it is the expression of a large poetic 
impulse, and the accumulation of a very broad national 
sentiment. In comparison with Randall's " Mary- 
land," or Pike's " Dixie," there is little in Key's verses 
to identify them as Southern. 

In fact, one must be careful to discriminate between 
extraneous creation which takes color from events of 
national importance occurring in the South, and spon- 
taneous feeling due to an inherited habit of mind, to 
a constitutional observation based upon close contact 
with environment, and to an expression unoriginal but 
generally accepted as the classical form of poetry. Not 
that we need, even in the poorest examples of South- 
ern verse, adopt the tone that the impulse was counter- 
feit. If an anthology were at hand, dealing with the 
mocking-bird, it would become evident that here is a 
native topic for poetic treatment, to which Audubon, 
Meek, Hayne, Pike, Lanier, and countless others bent 
their energies. This similarity of observational choice 
or response does not necessarily indicate imitation ; the 
whole significance and value lies in how far the true 
essence of the subject was caught, how close the poet 
came to the inevitable word, how vitally he expressed 
his environment, making it sufficiently worthy to be 
carried outside. 

Until the time of the school of Lanier, Southern 
poetry as an art will not stand the test of the highest 
comparison; it were futile, as literary criticism, to at- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 259 

tempt an extensive estimate in such manner. Largely 
these writers were lyrists of one song; it were safe to 
say that the romance and the passion they expressed 
were nearer Southern temperament than Southern con- 
dition ; this is well exemplified in Pinkney's " A 
Health," Wilde's " My Life'is Like a Summer Rose," 
and Cooke's "Florence Vane." Their sentiment is 
pure, not deep and lasting; they are not perfect either 
in conception or in execution ; they are so full of feel- 
ing as to overflow the slender form, and to overdo the 
grace, the chivalric spirit and personal application. 
In this respect, Wilde falls short of the highest lyri- 
cism, his spontaneity lost in an artificial variation of a 
melancholy refrain. In Southern poetry, the unity of 
feeling is scarcely broken; its continuity is wearing; 
what is weak is the unity of imagery and conception; 
in the space of a lyric, the sweetness ran riot, instead 
of inevitably concentrating in one line of rich emotion. 

Hence, the lyrics mentioned might hardly stand 
measurement with Jonson's " Drink to me only with 
thine eyes," or Herrick's " Bid me to live, and I will 
live," or Browning's "Evelyn Hope." There is a 
spiritual tremor in the perfection of lyricism which is 
hard to express above the overflow of feeling, and 
which is lacking in most Southern poetry. Yet such 
small pieces as those mentioned will have a place in 
every American anthology because they are true, 
graceful, easy, and affluent. Such art can never be 
even or sustained for any length of time; it is too 
much dependent upon the variation of custom, and is 
not anchored to a spiritual center. 

One naturally turns to Poe as the largest exponent 
of Southern poetry during this period, but on close 
examination, this claim is hardly tenable, since Poe's 
genius was an emotional accident rather than a native 
product, and he may hardly be said to have had any 
appreciable effect poetically upon his section^ certainly 



26o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

not as much as he exerted on Verlaine in France. His 
verse haunts by reason of its melody ; no variety marks 
the sHm volume; only variation of personal moods, 
dependent upon distorted imagination. There is no 
point of rest in Poe's poetry ; no locality for identifica- 
tion; it is all aberration due to a morbid reaction 
against true feeling or to a brooding sense of a world 
distinctly his own. 

Yet, to anyone taking the trouble to search through 
the collected works of Poe, a strong vein of contempo- 
raneousness will be detected in his writing — not in his 
poetry, which seeks for beauty as a reality and which 
here and there suggests the spirit of pantheism ; not in 
his aesthetic expression, which is indicative of a pecu- 
liar passion; but in the rationale side of his poetic 
theory and in his critical boldness and verity. Not only 
that, but, even though Poe was detached from the soil, 
yet a careful examination will disclose him as being 
fully aware of the literary activity in the South. Poe's 
constructive theories were not innately born of sound 
convictions; they were more properly dependent for 
their growth upon his aggravations. Perhaps the un- 
moral character of his work was constitutional, and re- 
sulted in his attacks upon the didacticism of Words- 
worth ; perhaps his early antagonism to Boston and his 
thorough aloofness from the New England tradition 
encouraged his dislike of Emerson and of the Brook 
Farm phalanx ; whatever the causes for his critical irri- 
tation, here lay the defect of his opinion. His other 
weakness was the variableness of his reviewing style. 

Poe has been called an exotic. "The Gold Bug" 
has for its locale, Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, 
and the description is impressionistic rather than 
Southern ; it is too permeated with the brooding spirit 
of imagination to be any nearer the actual than Le- 
grand's Jupiter was like a darkey. If, therefore, his 
poetry lacked the warm, external sentiment of South- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 261 

ern verse; if it, as well as his prose, was wanting in 
the luxuriant color of Southern environment, wherein 
may we claim that Southern influence was manifest? 
We are conscious that Poe was a man without a coun- 
try; his contact with America was as a critic, and we 
may further add that in his criticism are to be found 
evidences of his Southern environment. 

Poe's pride, sensitiveness, and individualism were 
undoubtedly fostered by his training in Virginia ; had 
he possessed a little of the didactic restraint which he 
so fervently despised in Wordsworth, he might not 
have later lacked the will which constituted the large 
weakness in his character. Where Poe comments on 
Southern literature, he is almost aloof, judging it 
apart from the culture out of which it sprung, but ap- 
plying to it the test of his own personal taste. It is 
well for the critic to approach a literary work upon its 
own merit as an isolated product ; yet in this ignorance 
of the local significance, much of its vitality is lost. 
Slavery is not entirely a local institution to Poe ; it is 
a phenomenon of society ; we claim this, despite the fact 
that in the Southern Literary Messenger, he refers to 
"our" domestic slavery in a vague way, thus identify- 
ing himself expressively with the soil. But his slavery 
convictions stamp him unmistakably as of the South; 
he is willing, because of the personal indignation raised 
in him by abolition attacks, to believe " that society in 
the South [considering the moral relation between mas- 
ter and slave] will derive much more of good than of 
evil from this much-abused and partially-considered 
institution." 

Poe, as reviewer, had a stereotyped way of approach- 
ing a book, whether prose or poetry, but he always ex- 
pressed faith in the future of Southern letters. He was 
more unerring i'n his estimate of style and in his psy- 
chology of temperament as seen in his curious " Au- 
tography," than in his clever valuation of content; 



262 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

what he read did not have permanent effect upon him ; 
his outward consideration was never based upon any 
inward concern; one might say that Poe was self-suf^ 
ficient. If he read a story, he Hked it upon certain 
hues ; if he praised a poem, it was because of its haunt- 
ing character, colored by sound. His knowledge was 
always to be doubted, his originality to be admired. 

As poets, Simms and Poe were direct opposites ; we 
might stretch Mr. Mabie's opinion, and say that 
Simms possessed the vitality that Poe needed, while 
the latter was more the genius of the two. In his 
verse activity, Simms was typical of the Gentleman of 
the Black Stock, who cultivated the lighter graces and 
accomplishments in a sedate manner; but though he 
was modest enough to designate his poetical works as 
"occasional effusions," he was prolific, and somewhat 
disturbed that, as a poet, he did not receive wider rec- 
ognition. xA.s he himself declared, his other labors were 
more deliberate and more demanding of his serious 
energies ; in this confession he suggests his poetic 
errors ; his verse shows an untutored carelessness that 
marked a vigorous conception distinguishing him as a 
romancer, and a masculine feeling that painted in large 
strokes and rough sincerity. His poems measure per- 
sonal fancies, emotions, affections ; he was strictly asso- 
ciative. As for his range, he passed from the moral 
and didactic to the dramatic and what he called the 
" essayical " ; when he touched the lyrical, whatever 
delicacy the lines contained was mixed with a consti- 
tutional robustness which Poe lacked altogether, a lack 
which Simms drew to his attention in correspondence. 

The Southerner regarded poetry as the natural ex- 
pression of any heightened emotion, whether or not 
One was endowed with the technical talent to express 
it. Much that Simms preserved of his verse was 
prompted by this dependence for inspiration on the 
moment, on the local occasion, as when, for instance, 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 263 

the Charleston regiment in the Mexican War inspired 
the individual poems in " Lays of the Palmetto " ; 
these embodied fleeting impressions and momentary- 
moods. 

Simms^ poetic vehicle often sank into mere prose, 
v^ithout the excellent quality of good rhythmic prose; 
his impulse was generally of a higher excellence and 
reticence than his expression ; at times he assumed the 
gallant air that betokened the versifier of camaraderie; 
again, his seriousness suggested the gloom of over- 
mellow romance. He was careless in his execution 
and in the details of his verse, as he was in his novels ; 
this indifference to appropriateness was best seen in 
his apparent lack of feeling, for word values and sound 
variations. Note where he draws upon history, how 
impatient he becomes of the restraint and compression 
which poetic description requires. Of Calhoun, he 
says: 

His lips spoke lightnings ! His immaculate thought, 

From seraph source, divinest fervors caught; 

His fiery argument, with eagle rush, 

Speird mightiest Senates into trembling hush. 

This was one of Simms' numerous occasional pieces; 
he was always alive to the event — the return of a regi- 
ment, a theater benefit for a monument fund, the dedi- 
cation of a cemetery. Southern oratory and poetry 
alike marked the hour and the minute. 

Curiously, Simms was too primitive in his imagina- 
tion to deal much in the decorativeness of classic allu- 
sion ; in the woods, he was more likely to see the Choc- 
taw than the Greek nymph. His poetry, in sentiment, 
in religious fervor, in imagination, was natural; the 
expression was artificial. His interest in Shakespeare 
found echo in his verse, but his large appreciation swal- 
lowed up the fine valuation of detail. Take Simms' 
ballad, " 'Twas on a night like this," and try to 



264 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

span the gulf between it and Lorenzo's and Jessica's 
night at Belmont! 

The variety of his themes, his sensitive response to 
the various relations of life, to the changes in seasons 
and years and days, suggest big ranges of fancy and 
thought, but Simms was predominantly literal in his 
verse. For this reason, were it not for the inevitable 
temptation to compare, it were useless to measure 
Simms on a level with the best; for as Arnold says: 
"If our words are to have any meaning, if our judg- 
ments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that 
supreme praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably 
inferior." Yet, Simms invites the method; by it we 
find him, along with a host of his contemporaries, feel- 
ing sincerely, but not clearly. His poem on *' Moral 
Change " suggests Wordsworth's " Tintern Abbey " 
in all but beautiful appropriateness and reserve of ex- 
pression ; his lines on " Silence," beginning, " Tlie 
desert hath its pyramid, and there. Silence is sove- 
reign," lack all the spacious transmutation of the finite 
in infinity, so well enriching Shelley's " Ozymandias " ; 
his " Vasco Nunez," consciously or otherwise, in its 
line, " Triumphant on a peak of Darien," echoes 
rightly the classic mistake of Keats in his " On first 
looking into Chapman's Homer." Strangely enough, 
in his sonnets on " Despondency and Self-Reproach," 
which have the lines : 

^ Oh, friend, but thou art come to see nae die ! 
I parted from thee as I think in tears,-' 

Simms suggests the more vital and vivid treatment 
of Browning's " Confessions," only accentuating 
thereby the lack in himself of the former's dramatic 
quality, which is so often confounded with vigorous 
narrative style. 

Altogether, Simms cannot stand Matthew Arnold's 




UJ.^ 



C^lj^ 



yL 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 265 

"touchstone " process with the best; even his religious 
fervor, containing all the solidity of tradition, is lacking 
in a universal vitality that should escape the narrow- 
ness of personal significance. Like Wordsworth, he, 
too, had his ecclesiastical sonnet period, as seen in such 
titles as "Objects Which Influence the Ambitious 
Nature," " Popular Misdirection," " Progress in De- 
nial," " The Soul in Imaginative Art," " Recompense," 
" Caprice of the Sensibilities," and musings of like 
character. In his robustness, in a certain democratic 
tenthusiasm which he possessed, Simms might have 
appreciated Whitman; had he not been a Southerner, 
and contemptuous of the Abolition group with which 
Emerson was identified, he might have sympathized 
with transcendentalism in its stark philosophy. He 
had all this potentiality, but lacked the genius to go be- 
yond his sectional limits. The uses to which he put 
poetry were often inappropriate; even his dramas, a 
mixture of melodrama and romantic fustian, of his- 
tory and local politics, indicate how loosely he con- 
ceived their province. 

Altogether, we have bulk, proportion, massiveness, 
an average excellence of purpose, a commonplace re- 
cording of fancies, but no high, sustained seriousness. 
In a way, Simms "was a pioneer, and, in consequence, 
he lacked outward delicacy and refinement, often, how- 
ever, approaching the verge of extreme daintiness; but 
it was the daintiness of a large man with a strong, 
rather than with a subtle, stroke. When we came to 
consider Simms as a prose-writer, we found the same 
pioneer attitude, — a product of distinctively Southern 
environment and tradition. 

There was a large willingness on the part of the 
Southern authors to keep in communication; not only 
through the medium of the magazines edited at vari- 
ous times by Poe and Simms, or through the coteries 
gathered in Augusta by Wilde, and in Charleston 



266 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

by Crafts, Legare, and Simms; not only by travel, ex- 
emplified in Poe, Simms, Kennedy, Legare, Meek, and 
others, but likewise by correspondence. And, to a cer- 
tain extent, the same veneration was seen in the poet- 
ical and literary circles, as occurred among orators. 
Simms sat in the midst of younger devotees, a group 
which included Hayne, Timrod, Porcher, and Michel, 
and discoursed to his heart's content, a prophet to 
another generation. 

The career of Meek is an excellent example of the 
Southern literary existence which was a pleasure and 
not a necessity, and which was subservient to activity 
along the lines of civic usefulness. His rank was high 
as a lawyer, and he filled prominent places, as Attor- 
ney-General of Alabama at twenty-two, and as Federal 
Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama,, a 
post given him after he had served, in 1845, ^s Assist- 
ant Secretary of the Treasury. His political career 
did not materially affect his literary product, although 
his influence in Alabama, while residing in Tuscaloosa 
and in Mobile, afforded him opportunity to enrich his 
historical studies of the State. The result was a volu- 
minous manuscript, comprising a history of Alabama, 
which was unfortunately forestalled by Pickett's ad- 
mirable work. This, however, did not prevent Meek 
from gaining considerable reputation as an historian 
of the South and of the Southwest, a position we have 
already noted. 

Although literature was a side stream in his life, 
although he enjoyed to a greater extent both judicial 
reputation and the distinction of having established 
Alabama's public school system. Meek by innate taste 
was a literary man. The correspondence between him 
and Simms, brought to light by Mr. Ross, is illuminat- 
ing. Meek's association with the press of the South 
began early, while he was living in Tuscaloosa; he 
edited the Flag of the Union and the Southron; 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 267 

then, when he moved to Mobile, he became associated 
with the staff of the Register, He contributed to Simms' 
Magnolia, and watched closely the literary needs of 
the South. A deep analysis of the conditions of the 
day points to constant irritation on the part of progres- 
sive Southern men; intellectually they were held in 
leash, and in personal intercourse they did not hesi- 
tate to utter complaint whenever their section failed 
to support them in their efforts to develop the literary 
incentive. But there was no denying the indisputa- 
ble fact that the South was not a reading community. 

The man of letters longed for close communication. 
Meek is representative of that literary aloofness which 
would not be cut off entirely from the life he loved. 
Amidst the routine of Washington affairs, he wrote 
to Simms, deploring the ill-luck of missing him when 
he passed through the capital ; his Bohemian dreams, 
coupled with his thirst for association, overflowed in 
warm feeling; this is not the tone of plantation life, 
but the reaction : 

" A bottle of Lillary Mousseaux and a beef-steak at 
Coleman's,'' he said, " as delicate as a zephyr, could 
have made a Nox Ambrosiana which Christopher 
North might have envied. In the * short hours,' I 
could have administered, by way of * night cap,' a 
few passages from the Red Eagle [his long poem], 
which would have sent you wandering through what 
Shelley calls ' the tangled wilderness ' of sleep. * Clin- 
ton ' would have sung, * 'Tis said that absence conquers 
love,' and you could have given us a few of those 
* Southern Passages and Pictures,' which Guido or 
Petrarch would have loved to look upon." 

This, then, is the partial spirit of culture which time 
and circumstances nipped in the bud; the lack of in- 
centive was the blighting frost which kept the flower 
from attaining full perfection, pate likewise seems 
to have turned Poe, the critic, from the channel of 



268 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

great influence in the South ; he might have done much 
to improve the general standard of the product. On 
hearing of a new Hterary work by Simms, Meek sent 
him the hope that he would '' safely pass the Poe, 
that most unnavigable of critical rivers for slender 
barques; indeed, a very salt river of the most Attic 
flavor." 

But a lack of the critical spirit in the South was due 
to a fear of it, and to the fact that in all practical 
existence, the South was on the defensive ; the progres- 
sive literary man, as well as the wise and sane states- 
man, found benefit in close touch with the, North, — 
Kennedy and Irving, Simms and Bryant, Bancroft 
and Meek, who wrote of his acquaintance in a tone 
measuring his admiration for the historian, despite 
his "Yankee heart and Yankee manners/' 

Yet the critical spirit was not lacking in the artists 
themselves ; they received suggestions willingly in cor- 
respondence, resenting them only when Northern jour- 
nals made public attack. Yet, to the credit of the latter, 
their blame was not generally unjust, while their praise 
was unusually gracious. The wheel of history marks 
the almost inevitable advance of civil war during this 
time, but the estimate of the best intellect, North and 
South, indicates a willingness, a desire, to circumvent 
the imminent danger. The potential genius of the 
Southern mind could not flourish in the soil as it was 
then furrowed; living and manners were alike easy, 
due to the over-luxuriance of climate; thinking was 
unnecessary where the most of life was established by 
custom ; luxuriant feeling overflowed in careless man- 
ner and ceased, not in the completeness of thought, 
but because the outward cause for emotion had been 
removed. 

Despite this, the Southern poet, for example, gave 
thought to the poetic principle ; men like Poe and 
Lanier and Timrod framed their own dicta, Poe irre- 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 269 

spective of Aristotle, Lanier in the light of the then 
recent science, Timrod prompted by a closer literary- 
appreciation. Poe's theory regarding the non-exist- 
ence of such a phenomenon as a long poem, finds a 
similar tone of personal preference in Meek's under- 
valuation of the sonnet, which he termed "poetry in 
the pillory.'' Admiring Simms' lyrics, he declared the 
sonnets stiff, which undoubtedly they were, — not a 
fault of the form, but a lack of proper use and suffi- 
cient training. For, though we may agree with Meek 
that Wordsworth often wrote dull sonnets, he was a 
very prince among sonnet writers; coming to Meek's 
own Southland, Timrod's practice in the form' surely 
justifies another and a different opinion. What is 
worth noting, nevertheless, is the presence, among 
these men, of independent technical thinking, which 
only needed the proper coordinating of cultural ele- 
ments and a closer contact to develop. 

The Southern literary man was imbued with a 
strong feeling of sectional love; the intercourse which 
he wanted in the North was not one of identification 
with the North. While this feeling was partly innate, 
it was further aggravated by outside under-valuation 
of Southern mentality; association provoked in the 
Southerner a fear that his originality might smack 
somewhat of imitation. Yet, magazines in the South 
failed because Northern literature was preferred when- 
ever literature was wanted. Meek, realizing this, hailed 
Simms as editor of the Southern Quarterly Review, 
the one man, to his way of thinking, who might add 
individuality to a Southern journal, " without which 
it might as well be printed at Cape Cod as Charleston." 
The literary man chafed under the*constant attention 
paid to landed interest; as the investments of the 
plantation owners demanded legislation for the small 
proportion of slaveholders, stamping out for the time 
being all consideration of the non-slaveholding class, 



270 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

so the Intellect was likewise made subservient, in its 
channels of grace and high seriousness, to the more 
practical needs of the moment. Meek was right in 
his belief that all the while Southern politicians were 
striving in Congress for sectional independence in 
commerce, manufactures and politics, the one neces- 
sary element in Southern life was independence of 
mind. Meek cried out against the curse of cotton. 

There was much in Simms and Meek to be stamped 
as American in the primitive sense. True to the indi- 
vidualism of the Gentleman of the Black Stock, they 
grew in their old age to be monopolists of conversa- 
tion, in which no one of the younger generation dared 
controvert their opinions. 

Southern poetry exhibits the pure devotion for the 
simplest aspects of nature; feeling is prompted by the 
elemental joyances of life; when freed from restraint, 
ethical or technical, the poet wells forth from springs 
of native beauty. When Meek refers to the mocking- 
bird as the "winged Anacreon of the South," we 
gain a flash of his peculiar culture, but the sentiment 
which lilts through his " Poems of the South " is as 
indigenous to the soil as the magnolia which scents 
his verse. Take Albert Pike's " Mocking-Bird," 
which lacks a certain polish, a certain classic beauty; 
it nevertheless has an enviable quality of the richest 
sincerity, almost pastoral in its enjoyment and in its 
appreciation of beauty. In the minor notes which 
have to do with the heart, is found the best Southern 
poetry. Wordsworth could not hope for more simple 
spontaneity than underlies such stanzas in Pike, as 

T cannot love the man who doth not love, 
As men love light, the song of happy birds. 

If again we resort to comparison and put this ode " To 
the Mocking-Bird " by the side of Keats' " Ode to the 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 271 

Nightingale," the former lacks a certain texture pos- 
sessed by the latter; it does not give the spirit of the 
bird, though it tells of the bird's existence. South- 
ern poetry of this period wants the vitality of purpose 
beneath its beauty; it confounds the unity of spiritual 
meaning with the sensitive response of feeling. But 
here again we find interests divided; Pike was a law- 
yer and a soldier, incidentally a poet, though later in 
life he gave himself seriously to literature. 

Certain characteristics mark the individual South- 
ern poet. There was Philip Pendleton Cooke, whose 
name connects John Esten Cooke with" John P. Ken- 
nedy, and whose *' fever-fits of composition " produced 
some notable lyrics, and whose love for hunting in the 
Shenandoah Valley gave him as enviable a reputation 
as the Knights of the Horse-Shoe possessed. Willis 
speaks of his " delicious bundle of heart-touching pas- 
sages, peculiar and invaluable more especially to lov- 
ers, whose sweetest and best interpreter Pinkney was. 
Every man or woman who has occasion to embroider 
a love-letter with the very essence-flowers of passion- 
ate verse, should pay a shilling for Pinkney's Poems." 
There was M. B. Lamar, whose active career in the 
history of Texas did not prevent him from writing 
what Professor Trent calls "the most extraordinary 
repository of extempore efifusions addressed by a gal- 
lant gentleman to lovely ladies to be found in the 
whole range of our literature." Legare, Wallis, and 
Mrs. Welby, who was fortunate in Poe's praise, — these 
are a few of the worthy singers whose record, liter- 
arily, is of small individual importance. Legare's 
prose, dull though it be^ will better gauge his worth, 
while on the other hand, Wilde's Italian studies can- 
not overcloud his lyricism. Pinkney's genius was 
handicapped by poverty and by a pessimism which is 
not characteristic of the South. Griswold attacked 
his "prostitution of true poetical genius to im- 



272 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

worthy purposes." Some of his poetry was printed 
anonymously, and also was rapidly written. 

A mere cataloguing of names will not suffice our 
purpose ; we are in search of conditions, and can afford 
to lose the poets in a general survey. They were all 
lyrists, most of them imitators in feeling of Scott or 
Byron, or Moore, some of them attempting exotic 
subjects in which they failed. They were none of 
them students in a deep sense; Wilde with his Tasso 
could not be put on the same plane as Lanier in this 
respect. While there is a sin in mediocrity, one must 
not forget to value the initial impulse. Pike, O'Hara, 
and others, rose to occasions as balladists; their im- 
mortality is bound up as part of the epic swing of in- 
ternecine warfare. The critic, in his sedulous desire 
to swell the bulk of Southern literature, might turn to 
Allston and Prentice, with some rightful claim to ter- 
ritorial inclusion, but the spirit of what we seek does 
not make it necessary. 

These casual literary devotees touched the whole 
realm of poetry ; their drama was bombastic, inactive, 
imitative; their philosophy not deeply understood, 
though their morality was governed by a set idea of 
social relationship. It was a grace for any member 
of a well-founded family to do a sentiment to a rare 
turn; but to cultivate the. talent seriously was a dis- 
grace. Much was written of foreign caste, after the 
manner of Byron; William Crafts, of Charleston, 
modeled "The Raciads " on Pope. The wit of the 
court-room crept into verse whenever the statesman 
changed his oratory for song, or his brief for a manu- 
script; were he a lawyer, his poetry smacked of his- 
tory ; were he a priest, naturally he turned to devotional 
subjects. Wherever there was an occasion and a 
poet, there was usually an ode; time and place were 
undoubtedly the prime incentives for the local singer. 
As a Gentleman of the Black Stock, the poet, turned 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 273 

dramatist, harked back to ancient days, or imitated 
Sheridan Knowles, as in the case of Isaac Harby. En- 
couraged by friends, a casual writer would sweep to- 
gether his scraps in a wretchedly printed and bound 
booklet, whose paper, like the poems thereon, dried up 
as pressed flowers, indicative of some personal and far- 
away gratification. The expanse of country, the 
opening of the Far West, the settling of the Mexican 
claim, v^tre sufficient to suggest an ample field for 
legend and imagination; the latter quality was weak, 
though the flesh was willing. The Catholic priest, 
the Quaker, the Creole, the emigrant, the soldier, the 
law-maker, all turned poets, because all of them were 
endowed with the gift of feeling — a feeling which 
some call the Chivalric Spirit. 

This condition was not typical of the South alone, 
but it was the general condition under which poetry 
was written in the South; the unfortunate circum- 
stance was that those who cultivated the Muse lacked 
a rich sense of humor. Though they were full of 
daring and ambition, sometimes outstretching Milton 
in their reach, if they touched religion, it was with a 
feeling that from them must come the brooding sense 
of ages ; they sought to impose upon you their philos- 
ophy, and they did so obscurely. With their local im- 
portance, they sought the larger world in the same 
provincial manner as they approached their local and 
** generous public." 

In prefaces, these poets made excuses for their un- 
fitness, but this was merely a stereotyped modesty that 
was not indicative of any realization of their medioc- 
rity; they were self-satisfied in their environment. I 
find one singer of Petersburg writing, " Born and 
reared In the Old Dominion, I wish never to go per- 
manently beyond Its boundaries. Breathing with de- 
light Its mild salubrious atmosphere, I wish to Inhale 
that of no other clime. Treading on its hallowed soil 



274 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

in life, let me rest beneath it in death." Out of their 
obscurity they would often come with the reputation 
of being the first to immortalize a locality in song; 
the one distinction which lay in such claim — usually 
accompanied also by the statement that without classi- 
cal pretensions, the author was merely a common man, 
— was to be found in the lyric simplicity, which, despite 
the conscious and awkward embellishment, contained a 
certain democratic feeling. 

These minor singers were intrepid, often rough; 
they sometimes boasted of common-sense above deli- 
cacy and ornament and learning, qualities which were 
usually identified with the aristocracy. Poetry to 
some was merely a commentary, to others merely a 
fleeting song. Whatever they did was conceived as 
original, however imitative of what they admired most. 
They had the sad consolation of knowing that if the 
world pronounced them lacking in imagination, dull 
and long-winded in execution, there were others duller 
and more lacking. To most, poetry was a trick, and 
the sheets had to be dashed aside, denoting inspiration. 
The chief excuse for weakness was that no time was 
allowed by clamoring friends for that polish which 
would have given the rough-hewn gems a greater 
value. They went through locality with a lyre strung 
on their hearts ; undoubtedly they were humble in their 
approach, in their reverence, in their chivalry. Occa- 
sionally, turning their music to practical ends, even as 
Lowell did in his " Biglow Papers," they sang in the 
spirit of political inclination, but always with senti- 
ment uppermost and with no abiding humor. The 
Literary Messenger did much to encourage the minor 
poets, and its pages were the sepulcher of many an in- 
glorious Milton. Poe, likewise, on his own initiative, 
was prone to overpraise the inferior galaxy, whenever 
their vocabulary pleased his mournful mood. 

It was the natural impulse divorced from the art 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 275 

reserve which hurt Southern poetry. The Gentleman 
of the Black Stock turned to literature for certain 
quiet enjoyment, but though he considered the highest 
art to. be created only under propitious circumstances 
of quiet and repose, nevertheless, active service on the 
field and in public administration did not prevent him 
from giving expression to his feeling, his emotion, his 
passion. These, with his quick eye for passing beauty, 
served him instead of rich imagination. There are 
hosts of such singers. North and South, but conditions, 
social, economic, and political, made the average 
Southern poetry fall far below the standard of the 
New England school. There was a democratic im- 
pulse, even in Lanier, but never a Whitman; there 
was a philosophic questioning, but never an Emerson ; 
there was a native lyricism, but never a Bryant or 
a Longfellow. Had society been organized differ- 
ently, the Southern poetry of this period would have 
been different. 



CHAPTER XII 

A SOUTHERN MYSTERY 

An Author with and without a Country: Poe 

If it should be asked, what is Poe's claim to be called 
either Southern or American? it might well be stated 
that no poet, no fiction writer, has less claim to the 
title than he. His imaginative faculty was not native 
to the soil; even as a book reviewer, he judged by old- 
world standards. Nor was Poe a man of the world, 
though he was constantly in it; he was not alive to 
the public issues of the. day. His critical work was 
the only part of his writing that showed any great 
interest in the growth of something American. He 
did not possess the love of country that so often 
prompted Cooper and Hawthorne; he was relentless 
in his attacks upon transcendentalism as typified in 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was one of our rare origi- 
nal philosophers. As far as his Southern inclinations 
were concerned, he had no picturesque appreciation of 
local scene, such as permeates the " Border Tales " of 
Simms, nor any of the healthy realization of the dis- 
tinguishing marks of Southern life, such as stamped 
the work of Kennedy. But he had more of the inevi- 
table art of expression. 

When we reach bed-rock, we find that Poe is an 
isolated figure, and for that reason he is the best known 
American author abroad; but there is another and a 
far deeper reason for this. Poe's temperament was 
of foreign cast. In the forty-nine years of his life, — 

276 




EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

From painting by Samuel S. Osgood, owned by the New York 
Historical Societ}'. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 277 

perhaps, to be more exact, counting from his university 
days, — Poe's nature did not grow larger ; he was born 
old; his humor was dark at the beginning, and it be- 
came more intensified with the advance of years. 
Buffeted from city to city, from office to office, Poe 
was not a humanitarian ; meeting man after man, and 
woman after woman, Poe was not a socialist ; he was 
an individualist. And though he infused into Ameri- 
can literature one of the few streams of originality it 
may lay claim to, yet Poe was not a citizen, — he was 
purely an artist,, a lover of the beautiful. For him 
there was even beauty in the grotesque. 

Still, the stock from which he sprung was such as 
to foster patriotic feelings. When John Poe came to 
America in 1745, it was said that Norman-French 
blood flowed in his veins, as well as Irish. No braver 
soldier fought in the Revolutionary War than David 
Poe, Edgar's grandfather, who attained the rank of 
assistant quartermaster-general. History mentions 
him again upon the battle-field in 18 14, despite his 
seventy-two years, fighting with all the ardor of patri- 
otic pride. If biographers are to emphasize the influ- 
ence of heredity upon character, here is a point in ques- 
tion: one of the most worthy periods of Edgar Allan 
Poe^s Hfe was that in which he served as a private in 
the United States Army. Once he was captain in a 
boys' military company, when Lafayette visited Rich- 
mond ; perhaps he heard the great Frenchman reiterate 
what he had feelingly uttered over David Poe's grave : 
" Here rests a noble heart." Later on, and after his 
army experience, Poe was to enter West Point, yet 
despite all this, he was totally un-American, though 
possessing the pride of the Southern aristocrat. 

Edgar Poe, the son of strolling players, was born in 
Boston, on January 19, 1809, but always contended : 
" I am a Virginian. At least I call myself one, for I 
have resided all my life, until within the last few 



278 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

years, in Richmond.'' He had a dislike for Boston, 
even though on the back of a picture painted by his 
mother were written the words : " For my little son 
Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his 
birth, and where his mother found her best and most 
sympathetic friends." 

The boy's father passes as a shadowy figure through 
the narrative of Mrs. Poe's precarious life as an actress 
and as a mother. In dire want she brought her children 
into the world, and finally succumbed to the constant 
struggle which left her weak in health and destitute. 
She died in want, an object of public appeal and char- 
ity, and her children were handed over to mere 
acquaintances. It was thus that Edgar came to live 
with Mr. Allan,^ whose wife had taken a fancy to the 
boy. 

After Poe's early education in the private schools 
of Richmond, business took Mr. Allan, his foster- 
father, to London, and he remained there for five 
years. With him went his wife, her sister, and little 
Edgar, who was placed at Manor House School, Stoke- 
Newington, under one Master Bransby. " William 
Wilson" contains reminiscences of this time. 

The school was situated in an historic part of the 
country, and legends worked upon Poe's fancy; his 
days were regulated by the strictness of the English 
educational system. It is more often that we think 
of Poe hungering wistfully for a mother's love, than 
living the healthy life of a growing boy. However, 
on his return to Richmond, in 1820, Poe began to de- 
velop into a leader among his playmates; he was an 
athlete of no mean prowess. 

Nevertheless, there was something lacking in the 
boy's life; it ate into his nature, as acid bites into 
zinc. His great pride hurt beneath the continued 
taunts of his companions; they knew that the orphan 
was housed by Allan ; this circumstance marked him at 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 279 

once as someone without a home. Critics have tried 
to deprive him of friends, but Poe had them, for his 
manner was attractive, even though his confidence was 
hard to obtain. One day, Poe went home with Stan- 
nard, a school fellow, and there met Mrs. Stannard, 
who spoke kindly to him, and showed soft and win- 
ning charm toward him. Thereupon Poe loved her 
with a youthful love that was as intense as it was short. 
She died in 1824, and the boy's grief swept over him 
in a perfect storm ; he was only content when he lay be- 
side her grave during the day, and sometimes through 
the long hours of the night. Afterwards, his grief 
clung to him as deep memories and sad memories al- 
ways cling, and the impressions recurred again and 
again in his writing. Jane Stith Stannard was called 
" Helen " by Poe ; he did not care for the other name, 
and with that imperious independence which he always 
showed, he changed it to his liking, and he sang of her 
in " To Helen," " Lenore," '' Annabel Lee," and " Ula- 
lume," poems characterized by their haunting melody. 
Poe's name was entered upon the matriculation 
books at the University of Virginia, on February 14, 
1826; his courses were all in the School of Ancient 
and Modern Languages. He was a student of retent- 
ive memory rather than of deep application ; both here 
and at West Point, his associates tell how he would 
read over his lesson rapidly and for the first time, 
just before being called. Though he drank but little, 
with considerable drinking among the students around 
him, he was slowly drawn into the whirl of gambling 
that flourished in its every form. Conditions in the 
university became so deplorable that the faculty ar- 
ranged with the civil authorities to check the evil. A 
sheriff entered the university one morning, ready to do 
his business and make arrests ; he appeared before an 
open doorway ; there was a stampede, and Poe was the 
leader. Through windows the wrong-doers made 



28o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

their -escape, and rushed on their way to the Ragged 
Mountains near by, where, some say, they remained 
three days in hiding. 

They called him '* Gaffy " Poe at the university, and 
it came about in this way: He had written a story, 
which especially pleased him, and so he invited a num- 
ber of his fellow-students one evening to hear it in 
his room. This was a rare treat to outsiders, for 
Poe was never free with his confidence ; they gathered 
around, while the young author read them the piece. 
The hero's name was " Gaffy," and it was " Gaffy " 
this and "Gaffy" that, so often, the fellows began 
to smile, and then someone suggested that it might 
be well to ehminate a few of the " Gaffys." Sensitive 
as Poe was, his face flushed with anger — the still pas- 
sion that produces calm action ; he crumpled the leaves 
of his manuscript and threw them without a word into 
the fire. " Good-night, Gaffy," greeted him on every 
side, as Poe dismissed his select audience. He stood 
there stung, as he was ever, even by friendly criticism. 

Those were the days when the social atmosphere of 
the university was not what it should have been ; when 
rich young men came with their retinues of servants, 
and spent more time over wine and cards than at lec- 
tures. Professors were ordered to break down doors 
if they became at all suspicious of what was going on 
in the students' rooms. This was the very worst life 
for Poe to lead. He was tempted on every hand. 
When he returned to Richmond on December 15, 1826, 
with a good record as far as his standing in Latin 
and French was concerned, Poe's debts amounted to 
$2500. This was sufficient cause to draw down upon 
him the wrath of Allan, who refused to pay them, and 
took him away from the university. 

In 1827, Poe went to Boston, where he placed a 
small manuscript, "Tamerlane and Other Poems," 
with a young printer, Thomas, who never in after years 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 281 

was able to associate Poe with the youth whose 
maiden volume he had issued. This leads us to believe 
that Edgar was then using an assumed name. The 
poems themselves were marked by a certain pride and 
love of beauty that were to grow in intensity. 

The immediate necessity for money made him enlist 
while in Boston, as private Edgar A. Perry, in the 
United States Army, May 26, 1827. He added 
two years to his age in order to comply with the regu- 
lations, even as later he was to take away two years so 
as to be within the age limit required to enter West 
Point. During this period he won for himself a cred- 
itable position. From Fort Independence, he was 
transferred South to Fort Moultrie, Charleston, and 
thence to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, where, on Janu- 
ary I, 1829, he was promoted from clerk and assistant 
in the commissariat department, to be sergeant-major, 
a rank obtainable only through merit. His fellow- 
officers liked him, and they suggested to him the possi- 
bility of entering West Point, where they were sure 
he would have further opportunity, after a time, of 
receiving rapid promotion. They all furnished him 
with letters. 

Mrs. Allan died on February 28, 1829. When Ed- 
gar returned to Richmond with the West Point plan 
in his mind, Allan aided him in his efforts to resign 
from the army by securing a substitute for him. This 
action was not disinterested on Allan's part ; he wished 
to get Poe safely out of the way, for he was about 
to marry again. This fact upset all of Poe's visions 
regarding a rich inheritance. Allan wrote to the 
authorities, when he recommended Poe for an appoint- 
ment to West Point : " Frankly do I declare that he 
is no relation to me whatever." 

When the appointment was finally secured, through 
the influence of Senator Ellis, a brother of Allan's 
partner, Poe was not in a humor to reap its advantages 



282 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Already he had launched into literature ; his taste had 
been whetted. 

At the close of 1829, "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and 
Minor Poems " was issued, — a volume, says Profes- 
sor Woodberry, which showed Poe's desire " to fix the 
evanescent, to perceive the supersensual." 

Poe's record at West Point was neither long nor 
brilliant. He was court-martialed on January 5, 1831, 
and dismissed " for disobedience to orders and absence 
from roll-calls, guard duty, and class work." On the 
morning of March 7, he went into the world with 
twelve cents in his pocket. This was the beginning of 
his continuous struggle against poverty. 

Many are the wild vagaries accredited to the Poe of 
this period: the stories about his joining the Greeks, 
and about his falling into difficulties in St. Petersburg 
in the year previous to his West Point entrance. Then 
there were the imaginary adventures in Egypt and 
Arabia, and Poe's severe illness in France, where he 
was nursed to life by a lady who defrayed all the ex- 
penses. There is some mention of his writing a novel, 
"The Life of an Artist at Home and Abroad," which 
cannot be traced. But in the legendary years from 
1827, certain facts would discredit any of these roman- 
tic adventures. No doubt Poe invented some of the 
stories to conceal his whereabouts from Allan. 

The date which brings us back to sure footing is the 
summer of 1833, when he was awarded the one-hun- 
dred-dollar prize offered by Wilmer's Baltimore Visi- 
tor for the best short story. This piece of fortune led 
to his friendship with John P. Kennedy, who acted as 
one of the judges in the contest. "The MS. found 
in a Bottle " was the particular story out of "Tales of 
a Folio " selected for publication, though all the stories 
were of striking interest, and were soon put in the 
hands of a publisher. Curiously enough, the judges 
had also selected a poem by Poe, for another prize, 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 283 

when It was decided to debar him on account of his 
success in prose. 

The direst poverty was upon Poe; when he called 
on his new-made friends, he was shabby in appearance, 
though neat in his Byron collar and black stock. 
Already the sinister look was descending- upon him; 
his smile was austere, and he was never heard to laugh. 
He was living with his aunt and little Virginia at the 
time. Asked to dine with Kennedy, he was obliged 
to write his host in a vein which must have acted as 
gall upon his pride : " I cannot come," runs the note, 
" for reasons of the most humiliating nature — my per- 
sonal appearance. You may imagine my mortifi- 
cation in making this disclosure to you, but it is neces- 
sary." 

The next sixteen years — a period embracing the 
whole of Poe's literary activity — may be definitely 
described. In his literary development there was a 
constant growth in style and technique; but, as stated 
before, in his mental activity and in his moral passion, 
Poe's individuality — always overshadowed — was the 
product of accretion, rather than of expansion. His 
was a brooding temperament: he was never able to 
throw off the grudge he bore the world. 

We must pause to note Poe's marriage, despite the 
opposition of his cousin, Neilson Poe, with the child, 
Virginia Clemm, in 1834. Impecunious as he was, yet 
Poe conceived about this time an idea which never de- 
serted him to the day of his death : the establishment of 
a "fearless, independent, and sternly just" literary 
journal. Fortunate it was for him, however, that T. W. 
White, owner of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
which was published in Richmond, Va., asked him to 
come to that city to do editorial work. For a time it 
looked as though Poe was on a fair road to prosperity. 
Certainly he associated himself with a journal whose 
solid content, even if precarious existence, added some 



284 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

luster to Southern literary activity, as we have already 
shown. 

Perhaps the final break with White was due to Poe's 
drinking-. " No man is safe," wrote White to him, in 
September, 1835, " that drinks before breakfast. No 
man can do so and attend to business properly." 
Which reminds one of Lamb's letter the day after the 

failure of " Mr. H ." Smoky dramatists, he wrote, 

made smoky farces. 

Certainly the rupture w^as not due to Poe's laxity in 
work. He was faithful in his duties, and contributed 
many stories to the different numbers of the maga- 
zine. But in the midst of it all, he began his pro- 
pensity for borrowing ; at times he fell into the lowest 
ebb of spirits. " I am wretched," he said to Kennedy, 
" and know not why. Console me, — for you can. 
But let it be quickly, or it will be too late." 

Poe's association with the magazine resulted in an 
increase in circulation from seven hundred to five thou- 
sand. Toward White, who was a man of kind heart, 
and who never turned against his unfortunate editor, 
Poe was always punctilious ; but he realized that the 
proprietor of the Messenger was a man of little or no 
culture. White, on his part, appreciated the full worth 
of Poe. 

As a master of the short story, the young man was 
contributing some of his future classics, such as "' Bere- 
nice," " Morella," and '' The Assignation." As a poet, 
the first draft of "Israfel" was being printed, to- 
gether with pieces from his 1827, 1829, and 183 1 
volumes. Poe has been accused of using his old mate- 
rial over and over again; if so, each reappearance 
meant an improvement in wording and in form. As 
a critic, he was beginning that assertive independence 
which was to make his views potent, and to win for 
himself enemies among his contemporaries, whom he 
fearlessly considered. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 285 

In 1837, the Poes moved to New York and then to 
Philadelphia, where began Edgar's association with 
W. E. Burton, the actor, who owned The Gentleman's 
Magazine. Here it was, as Professor Harrison avers, 
that Poe met his good and his evil angel — George R. 
Graham, who was ever his friend, and Rufus Wilmot 
Griswold, who afterwards became the legal executor 
of the poet, writing a biography that villified the dead 
man, and willfully distorted facts. 

The year 1839 saw the publication of "The Con- 
chologist's First Book " — a compilation, a paraphrase 
of a standard work, — anything but an original study, 
yet Poe allowed his name to appear on the title-page 
as author. More important still was the issue of 
" Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," containing 
the high-water mark of his art. "Ligeia," with the 
same theme as " Morella," and " The Fall of the House 
of Usher," similar to *' Berenice," are the two tales 
which Professor Woodberry claims " deserve more at- 
tention in that they are in Poe's prose what * The 
Raven ' and 'Ulalume' are in his poetry, the richest of 
his imaginative work." Poe's wife was the basis for 
his most ethereal heroines; so, too, did he paint him- 
self, most notably in the description of Roderick 
Usher: 

"The character of his face had been at all times 
remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an 
eye, large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; 
lips somewhat thin and very palHd, but of a surpassing 
beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, 
but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar forma- 
tions ; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of 
prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more 
than web-like softness and tenuity: these features, 
with an inordinate epcpansion of the temple, made up 
altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten." 

Poe's association with Burton was a stormy one ; it 



286 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ended in a mutual misunderstanding. The actor, 
wanting money for his theatrical enterprises, made 
business overtures to Graham, who finally bought th€ 
magazine. This was done, so Poe said, without his 
knowledge. On the other hand, Poe, ever anxious to 
establish that literary journal of his, an idea which 
flourished under the two names. The Penn Monthly 
and The Stylus, began openly to further his schemes, 
which Burton resented; he accused Poe of misusing 
the good-will of the paper on which he served. Still, 
Burton was a well-disposed friend of Poe's. He re- 
quested Graham to retain the young editor. The Gen- 
tleman's Magazine had afforded Poe ample opportu- 
nity to republish old material, and here, too, he made 
his first accusation of plagiarism against Longfellow, 
a discussion which, around 1845, assumed ridiculous 
and unwise proportions. It was Poe's sensitiveness, 
his distrust of human nature in general, which em- 
broiled him so often with men like Chivers, the South- 
ern poet, and which drew down upon him unjust accu- 
sations from those who had either directly or indirectly 
been hurt by his ire. 

During this period, Poe developed wonderful powers 
of analysis and synthesis. He prided himself upon 
his ability to read whatever cryptogram was given him, 
so he published an open challenge in Graham's, 2iS the 
magazine was now called, and was thereupon deluged 
with all kinds of hieroglyphics, which he proceeded to 
solve with amazing ease. It was this analytical mind 
that made his stories appear so accurate in their seem- 
ing knowledge of science and metaphysics. His tales 
all contain elements that produce a peculiar weirdness 
and orientalism. He forestalled the plot of Dickens' 
" Barnaby Rudge," before he had seen the final chap- 
ters of the book. Poe's mind was essentially specula- 
tive, and granting the speculation possible, it was thor- 
oughly logical as far as it went. 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 287 

After the abandonment, in February, 1841, of the 
Penn Monthly, for which a prospectus had many times 
been issued, Poe took the editorial chair of Graham's. 
For this magazine and for The Saturday Evening 
Post he poured forth all the originality of his genius. 
As a reviewer, he distributed his spleen and what he 
considered to be his just censure. The circulation of 
the magazine increased rapidly, a fact that made the 
editor discontented, because he did not possess any of 
the proprietary rights. 

He worked hard and faithfully in Philadelphia; 
Graham appreciated that. And in the midst of it all, 
so Graham wrote, Poe lavished upon his wife a love 
which " was a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit 
of beauty, which he felt was fading before his eyes." 
He parted from Graham and returned to New York 
in April, 1844; Mrs. Poe was in so delicate a state of 
health that she needed his constant care. Worldly 
matters were now pressing hard upon him. " I believe 
she [Virginia] was the only woman he ever truly 
loved," declared Mrs. Osgood. 

"Reaching New York, Poe conceived the idea of the 
" Balloon Hoax," the description of a great flying ma- 
chine which had crossed the Atlantic in three days. 
Published in the New York Sun, it created unusual 
interest. Poe was gifted in the ease with which he 
handled mat^erial of a pseudo-scientific character. 
" Hoaxing," claims Professor Harrison, was " an in- 
grained element of Poe's intellectual make-up." In 
this instance, the modern Zeppelin and the Wrights 
may yet verify his claims. 

This period of his life was marked by his associa- 
tion with Nathaniel P. Willis, editor of the Evening 
Mirror, He was as usual assiduous and conscientious, 
although filling but a minor position as casual para- 
graphed " We loved the man," said Willis, '* for 
the entireness of fidelity with which he served us." 



288 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

How hard he toiled, how painful he found his daily 
existence may well be imagined. Mrs. Clemm, dur- 
ing the fateful year of 1849, consulted Willis as to 
what to do. The Poe family was in absolute want. 
The kindly editor put in his paper a plea for Poe which 
stung the latter to the quick; his pride would have 
made him starve in the streets rather than beg, though 
he had no hesitancy in borrowing, since he always 
meant to pay back. In this year of 1845, ^ kind of 
partial fulfillment of a life-long desire occurred; Poe 
found himself as sole proprietor of The Broadway 
Journal, Dreaming always of running a fearless 
organ, not typically American but boldly critical, he 
now realized that capital was quite as requisite as 
ideas. And though he made constant appeals for 
financial backing, he had to let the paper die a slow 
death. Then it was that he penned his stanzas on 
"The Raven," while living on West Eighty-fourth 
Street, and not, as is commonly believed, after he had 
moved to Fordham. 

The poem brought Poe again into prominence; he 
was always riding on the topmost wave of his own 
creations, always to be tossed farther into the depths, 
the higher he went. He used to read his poems in 
the few social circles where he was sometimes seen, 
a figure of somber bearing; but his brilliant conver- 
sation always left a profound impression upon those 
who heard him. When he read, his melodious voice 
would rise in its enthusiasm to a pitch of quivering 
excitement; he would seem intoxicated by the mere 
sway of his own creations ; his eyes would gleam into 
the realm of fancy, his whole being utterly forgetful 
of those around him, — somehow slipping his identity 
altogether in the mad frenzy of the moment. Not 
only did he read his poetry well, but he was always 
testing the processes of his own inventiveness. His 
claim that there could be no such thing as a long 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 289 

poem often formed an evening's topic of conversation, 
v^hile the analyses of the steps involved in the writing 
of " The Raven " became the theme for one of his 
most interesting, if not most persuasive, essays. 

Despite the negative conditions of both mind and 
body, 1845 "^^y be considered Edgar Poe's *' banner 
year." His work was continual and varied; every- 
thing found its way into print, but no material bene- 
fits resulted. Then, in 1846, he moved to Fordham, 
where he could have his garden, and where he and 
Virginia could enjoy the companionship of out-of- 
door life. Still, poverty pressed closer and closer, 
while weakness in the frail little woman by his side 
became more and more. On January 30, 1847, Mrs. 
Poe died, with scarcely covering enough on the bed 
sufficient to warm her shivering body. 

Literary commissions began to drop away from 
Poe. Struggling with little hope, he resurrected 
The Stylus, in which he had roused the interest of a 
Western man. It is a peculiar instance of the work- 
ing of Poe's mind that before leaving New York 
for Richmond, he wrote to Griswold asking him to be- 
come his literary executor. Probably premonitions of 
approaching danger had seized his overwrought mind. 
To Mrs. Lewis, the " Stella" of his affection, he spoke 
of never seeing her again. He told everyone good- 
bye with a feeling that he would not return. In 
Philadelphia, where he stopped, he attempted suicide, 
but recovered from his frenzy sufficiently to reach 
Richmond. 

Even with the mass of data concerning the death 
of Edgar Poe, it is well to leave it shrouded in an in- 
distinct mist. He went away from Richmond after 
having been brightened somewhat by the renewal 
of many friendships. Drunkenness, stupor, election 
brawls, cloud the movements of the poor man after 
he arrived in Baltimore. The hospital authorities 



290 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

could state nothing up to the time they were called to 
take him away unconscious. Delirious, he begged 
someone to blow his brains out. Perhaps for the first 
time he felt the spirit of peace approach him at the 
end, which came on October 7, 1849. " Lord help my 
soul," he cried and expired. If he had been drugged, 
it is significant, thinks Professor Harrison, that Poe 
left Richmond with $1000 in subscriptions on his per- 
son. 

Intense somberness heightened by intense romanti- 
cism, — that is Poe ; somberness and romanticism given 
moraj balance by Puritanism, — that is Hawthorne; 
there, it seems, the similarity ends. As a critic, Poe 
may be called an American pioneer ; as a short story 
writer, he may be considered a universal example. It 
is that which has probably established his position 
abroad. It took a decadent, Baudelaire, to do a 
French translation of Poe which, even English readers 
find, contains the tone of the original. It took 
Mallarme to translate some of his verse. 

No better example of the Poe type in fiction can be 
had than Poe himself; he realized it in his "WiUiam 
Wilson," the story of a dual personality; in "Beren- 
ice," and more markedly still in " Eleanora " : "I am 
come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor 
of passion. Men have called me mad; but the ques- 
tion is not yet settled whether madness is or is not 
the loftiest intelligence." No sadder plight can be, 
than that where a man becomes conscious of his lack 
of will. His life of whim w^as an abnormal one. 

Poe occupies a peculiar place in American litera- 
ture; his very name conjures up a cynical, dark, fore- 
boding picture. Yet he fascinated by his very power 
of expression and imagination. He wrote too repor- 
torially to be a critic of weight, yet his judgment was 
intuitively correct and his critical knowledge played 
upon American books and American authors. He 



ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD 291 

was much surer of the mystic purple of gloom, how- 
ever, than he was of the brawn and sinew of Ameri- 
can hope. Had he been living to-day, he would have 
been heard of in the psychical societies that are try- 
ing to reach the unknown through disembodied spirits. 
He was a friend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; 
and his occult interest probably drew them together, 
beyond her admiration for the music of " The Raven." 
It just happened that Poe was born on American 
soil; only his minor work touches American life. If 
we set out to draw an American portrait of him, we 
must concentrate our attention upon him as a critic. 
His tales, his poems are based on a foundation of 
nerves. Poe was more akin to the country of 
Maeterlinck than to the land of Cooper. Wherever 
he went, a shadow followed him: before, behind, to 
the right and to the left. Poe lived in the land of 
Poe, haunted, dogged, tormented, and finally undone 
by a shadowy, unstable image of himself. 



IV 
CIVIL WAR PERIOD 



TABLE OF AUTHORS 



1775-1861 . 


. . George Tucker . . . 


. . Virginia 


1800- 1856 . 


Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz . 


N.C.,Ala.,Fla. 


1807- 1870 . 


Robert Edward Lee . . 


. Virginia 


I8IO-I88I . 


. Rev. Francis Robert Goulding 


. . Georgia 


I8IO-I885 .. 


. . Robert Toombs . . . 


. . Georgia 


I8I2-I883 . . 


Alexander Hamilton Stephens 


. . Georgia 


18 14- 1863 . 


. William Lowndes Yancey 


. . Alabama 


1819-1899 . Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth Dist. of Columbia 


1820- 1867 . 


. . Theodore O'Hara . . 


. . Kentucky 


1820-1897 . 


Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston 


. . Virginia 


1822- 1874 • 


. Francis Orrery Ticknor . 


. . Georgia 


1823- 1873 . 


John Reuben Thompson . 


. Virginia 


1825- 1906 . 


John Williamson Palmer . 


. . Maryland 


1825-1887 . 


Augustus Julian Requier . 


South Carolina 


1829- 1867 . 


, . Henry Timrod . . . 


South Carolina 


1829- 1879 . 


Mrs. Sarah Anne Dorsey . 


. Mississippi 


1829- 1887 . 


James Barron Hope . . 


. . Virginia 


1830- 


Mrs. Mary Virginia [Hawes] 






Terhune (Marion Harland) 


. . Virginia 


1830- 1886 . 


. . John Esten Cooke . . 


. . Virginia 


1830- 1886 . 


. Paul Hamilton Hayne . 


South Carolina 


1835- 


. . Henry Lynden Flash . 


. Louisiana 


1835-1909 . . 


. Augusta Evans Wilson . 


. Alabama 


1839- 1909 . 


. James Ryder Randall . 


. . Maryland 


1839-1886 . 


. Abram Joseph Ryan . . 


. Alabama 


1842-1881 . 


. . Sidney Lanier . . . 


. . Georgia 



CHAPTER XIII 

SOCIAL FORCES 

The Problems of Secession ; the Orators of Se- 
cession; Characteristics of the Confederacy; 
THE Stress of War; the Fall of the Old Re- 
gime; THE Force of Leadership; the New 
South amidst the Ruins; Intellectual De- 
markations Caused by the War; the Old- 
fashioned Novelists: John Esten Cooke, St. 
George Tucker, Augusta Evans, and Others. 

^- 1 

The problems confronting- the Southern people dur- 
ing the decade beginning 1850 were those of expedi- 
ency ; they were simply a continuation, in more aggra- 
vated form, of the conditions already outlined in pre- 
ceding chapters. But a change in intensity rather 
than in kind betokens a far different temper, an atti- 
tude of mind which distinguishes the statesman from 
the politician. Furthermore, an actual state of war 
imposes upon the people at large immediate measures 
and sacrifices, and brings to light the true strength or 
weakness of those resources which indicate in a way 
the social and economic status of the civilization. 

The change of intellectual bearing toward constitu- 
tional interpretation takes more than a war to effect; 
generations must intervene between the now and then 
of time. Writing in 1897, Professor Trent declared 
that the men between sixty-five and fifty-two years of 
age working in the New South were men who, in i860, 
ranged in years between twenty-nine and sixteen, and 

295 



296 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

therefore had well-ingrained the ideas which were be- 
hind the Civil War. If numbers are at all significant, 
we should follow Professor Trent a few steps further 
and note that in 1897, ^^^i aged between fifty-two and 
forty were " practically unaffected by the civilization 
for which they fought." Is there any meaning to 
these facts? It is only the generation that in 1897 
varied in years between thirty-six and twenty-five, we 
may really consider to be products of the New South. 
Therefore, we find that the real, true upbuilders of the 
Present South were men who " either brought to their 
task the ideas and training of an older generation and 
a bygone civilization, or else have carried on their work 
untrained or self-trained." 

How, therefore, did the prostrate section gain that 
education, which. Dr. Alderman says, has come 
through defeat? By falling back upon those perma- 
nent characteristics of the Old Civilization which are 
the chief glory of the Southern people. Thus we may 
have taken a round-about fashion of reaching the 
statement that the men who handled the problems of 
secession were so steeped in the constitutional preju- 
dices of their forebears, that, what with their threat- 
ened economic system, with the palpable discrimination 
of Congress, with the increasing aggravation of sec- 
tional temper, due in part to natural sensitiveness and 
very largely to fanaticism on both sides, they lost sight 
of the national view in the consuming necessity for 
special pleading. 

It is essential that we determine the temper, rather 
than the change in views, of the Southern people, for 
the inevitable trend that affairs had taken was already 
apparent before the death of Jefferson, and had been 
forecast by Calhoun. The war spirit is not given to 
rise quietly; it does not brook forbearance, and it 
flows in isolated streams until some event fuses 
all into one torrent of public accord. The generation 
of orators succeeding Calhoun was nearer the whirl- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 297 

pool ; these men juggled with the double-headed in- 
terpretation of th-e Constitution left by the framers, 
and split into as many political factions as there were 
varieties of opinions. 

Agitation was the spirit of the time ; there were union 
and disunion elements in the South: — parties in the 
different states, holding to the same beliefs, yet dif- 
fering in the intensities of those beliefs; one crying 
for instant secession, the other more conservative re- 
garding a definite break, but determined to resist every 
encroachment upon Southern rights that might come 
from the North. In their speech, many of them were 
rash, but when the time arrived, brought discernment 
to bear with wise counsel. Such a man was Toombs 
(1810-1885). Some, like Stephens (18 12-1883), be- 
lieving in the Union and disapproving of slavery, 
showed more wisdom though no less sincerity than 
Davis in their actions. The political divisions weak- 
ened the voice of the South at that time, made it 
difficult for a party leader to determine how far he 
might be able to go with sufficient public support. 
William Loundes Yancey's (1814-1863) existence was 
a precarious one. Though adamant in his stand for 
secession, this Alabama fire-eater felt popular favor 
ooze through his fingers at one convention, only to 
find at another that he had all within his grasp. In 
a way, Yancey's attitude gave to Alabama a signifi- 
cant position among the Southern States. 

Do the forces which governed Southern life dur- 
ing the Civil War differ fundamentally from those 
which determined the tone of the ante-bellum period? 
The difference is simply one of degree — one which dis- 
tinguishes the orator from the soldier. The reminis- 
cences of Mrs. Roger A. Pryor and of Mrs. Clay-Clop- 
ton have the same unmistakable warm tone and ample 
cordiality which marked the " Memorials of a Southern 
Planter" by Susan D. Smedes, — the records of the 
Dabney family. But even here the difference is one 



298 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of intensity, brought about by the armed neutrality 
which marked society in Washington during the years 
preceding the outbreak. Wherever one turns to ex- 
amine condition, the blood of the Southerner beat at 
higher tension and his mind was bent on self-protec- 
tion. Beverley Tucker's " Partisan Leader " was 
simply premature, a warning fever-spot which took on 
the semblance of prophecy as events progressed. 

The old-time historical method was one of proud 
tradition rather than one of analytical judgment; 
events were measured by leaders ; and writers, whether 
they were dealing in biography or in fiction, idealized 
their heroes for the sake of character above the fact. 
Even such a late literary product as John Esten Cooke 
passed from the large figures of the Revolution to 
those of the Civil War, from, Patrick Henry in " The 
Virginia Comedians " to *' Stonewall " Jackson and to 
" Surrey of Eagle's Nest." 

Generally, the character of the literature remained 
the same; the leaders who fought left their reminis- 
cences and their recollections of a youth passed under 
the tutelage of the Gentleman of the Black Stock. 
Their bearing was indelibly stamped with all those 
distinct peculiarities of a rural civilization, and they 
were accustomed to the spirit of control which slavery 
and caste encouraged. Some even, like Davis and 
Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard, Jackson and 
Longstreet, passed through West Point into the Mexi- 
can War, and became associates In other conflicts like 
the Black Hawk War and John Brown's Raid. Thus, 
the Southern orators of secession were trained under 
the shadow of the greater statesmanship, while the 
leaders of the Confederate armies learned their tactics 
in the service of the nation. 

As we have previously said, a war literature is not 
marked by the highest technique; its chief value lies 
in its unavoidable reflection of the temper of the times. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 299 

The importance of such data is inestimable in deter- 
mining the stress and strain of the moment. Un- 
fortunately, its after-effect on the literature is not 
the most excellent, since, in the case of the Southerner, 
it served to encourage a natural inclination to look 
backward instead of forward. The consequence is 
that, Hterarily, ^he past decade illustrates how persist- 
ently the old traits have held us in thrall. Miss Glas- 
gow's "The Battleground "and Mr. Cable's "Kin- 
kaid's Battery" are the most excellent examples of 
the past spirit attached to a newer and more natural 
method. 

The social students of such institutions as Johns 
Hopkins and Columbia University, who are now deal- 
ing with the forces of the Civil War, are doing much 
to correct the vision of the Southern novelist; they 
are dealing with the substrata of this civilization which 
gave life to the seceded states in the hour of defeat. 
Not alone are they considering the romance of love 
and the melancholy devastation of war descending 
upon romantic characters, but they are dealing with 
a people in a larger manner, and are showing these 
people in relation to the forces of environment. From 
such views we are beginning to see that the roots of 
the New South did not take hold after the war, but 
were simply retarded in immediate growth by the ac- 
tual assumption of hostilities. 



II 

A study of conditions will show likewise that events 
determined the thought of the orators of secession; 
they were true to their training, they were sincere in 
their intentness, but they were too provincial to see that 
moral forces outside of themselves were far too strong 
for them. The direct influence of the abolitionist 
was not as great as would seem on the surface; his 



300 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

presence was an irritant which served to keep ever- 
present the slower moral force existing in spite of 
him, and of which he was an extreme example. The 
fire-eater held a more direct position in relation to his 
constituents. Yancey, in Alabama, is historically, as 
Brown states, *' among the half-dozen men who have 
had most to do with the shaping of American history 
in this century." He was the heart and soul of seces- 
sion, — a figure of big invective, who resisted compro- 
mise, and who unswervingly followed a direct course. 
It is strange that a man who, in early life, would 
oppose Calhoun's theory of nullification, should with 
equal intensity decry Clay's plan to save the Union. 

There were eight pohtical parties in Alabama be- 
tween 1845 ^^d 1855. When Yancey ceased to support 
the Union, he declared himself a Democrat of the 
States' Rights wing; where others wavered, he stood 
firm; in 1845, ^^ marched from the halls of Congress 
because the Northern Democrats opposed Southern 
measures. Politics were in a jumble ; constituents, 
opposed as Whigs and Democrats, united in their ideas 
on the " compact theory" of the Constitution. Yan- 
cey's creed was simply : I champion anything that fur- 
thers the South. He became the center of attraction 
at conventions, he was sought after at barbecues; in 
a way, he was an autocrat, and though his actions were 
often doubtful, they were generally forgiven. 

Yancey's strength ebbed and flowed with the com- 
promise measures ; he triumphed in the Alabama Plat- 
form of 1848, born in part of the Wilmot Proviso, 
and containing a twelfth resolution which breathed of 
secession in its determination to recognize no Demo- 
crat as such Avho attempted to " demoralize the South 
and its institutions." The South opposed sectional 
discrimination in recently acquired territory, and depre- 
cated the North's ill-faith in the Fugitive Slave Law 
agreement. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 301 

The figure of Yancey is marked by picturesque 
action. At the Baltimore Convention he swept from 
the hall because he would not support the theory of 
squatter-sovereignty ; he was continually sending forth 
addresses to the people of Alabama, and finding him- 
self halted in his onward progress by determined oppo- 
sition from. Union men, who, like Henry W. Hilliard 
and Governor Watts, believed in compromise rather 
than in secession. 

Amidst the pressure of rising temper, the South held 
no definite attitude toward the Constitution; its de- 
termined stand, however, was for the preservation of 
its own existence and individuality. With the com- 
promise of 1850, Yancey lost sight of the theories of 
secession ; secession, per se, became the objective point ; 
to him that was the only way of saving the plantation 
system. In this spirit, he undertook to agitate the 
movement, and how well he succeeded is measured h^ 
the event. By 1858, his so-called "scarlet letter " fell 
upon rich soil, which he had relentlessly prepared. 
" No national party can save us,'' he cried ; " no sec- 
tional party can save us.'' As he stood in Mont- 
gomery on the balcony of the Exchange Hotel, 
haughty, grim, sure of himself, people saw before them 
the very symboHc brand of hatred against " Black Re- 
publicanism," a phrase which dotted his periods and 
sentences. Some, far removed in the crowd while lis- 
tening to him, caught the waves of passion through 
what a witness called the ventriloquial property of his 
voice. 

Armed with the Alabama Platform of 1848, Yan- 
cey went to the Charleston Convention of i860, fear- 
ing the victory of the North, yet intent on carrying the 
demands of his section. His speech was of no avail, 
and, with that melodramatic quickness which marked 
his meteoric progress, he left the hall, this time not 
alone, but followed by the Southern delegates. Dur- 



302 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ing this year he invaded the enemy's camp in the inter- 
ests of Breckinridge, for he was pledged in his own 
mind against the Clay habit of compromise which 
Douglas had inherited. Speech after speech was re- 
ported in the papers, and they rang more and more 
defiantly as he neared Cincinnati. Who can picture a 
more strenuous scene than that in Faneuil Hall when 
he blazed his way through abolition sympathy, or 
scenes more illustrative of the rising intensity of South- 
ern sentiment than his receptions, once more at home, 
when the citizens of Nashville pulled his carriage 
through the streets, and New Orleans declared a formal 
holiday in his honor? The tide was rising. If the 
Republican party was to gain a victory in the national 
elections, Yancey at least held the reins of disunion 
in his hands. He traveled upon the heels of Douglas 
in Montgomery ; he fired his most effective arguments, 
and the people of Alabama drew closer together. The 
Union sentiment in that State is not to be identified 
with sympathy for the Northern attitude. 

In this manner the " fire-eater '' worked, and he ac- 
complished his ends effectively, if not wisely. Yet 
even in determining the cast of Southern feeling, we 
must indicate relative degrees. Robert Toombs may 
be considered a mean between Yancey and Alexander 
Stephens. The transitory character of such speech 
as Yancey's is reinforced only by an examination 
of the papers of the time; in style, it was calculated 
for instant appeal; in content it was framed for 
instruction, not for keen interpretation. While 
throughout the States the partisan newspaper per- 
formed its functions, the true lyceum was still the 
platform. 

m 

Robert Toombs, of Georgia, typifies the Southern 
mind in another interesting aspect; as a man of un- 
swerving business integrity, he was at the same time 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 303 

provincial and progressive; his legal grasp was quick 
and masterful; his practical point of view made him 
opposed to the Calhoun school of politics, inasmuch as 
he saw wherein a protective tariff and a national bank 
were beneficial. He opposed the principle of internal 
improvements, and foresaw the aggressive attitude of 
State railways and corporations which he combated 
at a later day. Being of an exacting temper, he pre- 
ferred associating himself with the State Assembly 
rather than with the Senate, and so sincere was he in 
his belief that the Whigs of the North were one with 
those of the South, and so emphatic was he in his 
declarations that it was well to encourage free labor 
in preference to slave labor, that he was soon regarded 
as somewhat of an Abolitionist. As a States' Rights 
Whig, he was akin to Troup, whom v/e have already 
considered. 

This man, who later was to be a fugitive, was, 
around 1840, firmly convinced of the fact that slavery 
was a political evil. Yet he was imbued with the tradi- 
tions of Virginia landowners ; he was a firm supporter 
of a strong Supreme Court in the State, and fought 
against a system of surety which had brought sure dis- 
aster upon the heads of " flush-times " men in the finan- 
cial panic of 1837. These facts are sufficient to indi- 
cate the sincere honesty of the man. He opposed the 
Texas and Mexican aggrandizements as constitution- 
ally unjust, — so unlike Wise, soon to be the war gov- 
ernor of Virginia, who maneuvered with Calhoun 
for the annexation of all territory he could seize. It 
was somewhat surprising to find Toombs, as repre- 
sentative from Georgia in the Twenty-ninth Congress 
(1845), opposing the Oregon claims, and saying: 
"Let us repress any unworthy sectional feeling which 
looks only to the attainment of sectional power." 
Persistently his voice was heard in the cause of the 
rights of States; he did not champion the moral argu- 



304 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ment in favor of slavery, but he believed in the com- 
mon rights of all States in acquired territory. He 
therefore looked askance at compromises which would 
abrogate any of the privileges of the compact; the 
property law of the slave States should be recognized 
without restriction. In picturesque fashion he regarded 
the " Clayton Compromise " as " the Euthanasia of 
states' rights." His assumption of the necessity for 
secession grew out of this unswerving attitude toward 
the territorial question. In June, 1850, he was fully 
determined that, should the South be denied these equal 
rights, he for one would be ready to '' strike for inde- 
pendence/' 

But though determined and vehement, he advised 
the people of Georgia, in whom disunion was rife, to 
forbear and " stand by the Constitution and the laws 
in good faith." The growth of his position was due 
entirely to the threatening elements which comprised 
" the marked battery behind which the rights of the 
South are to be assaulted." This is nowhere better 
witnessed than in the tumultuous scene in the House 
(1850), which brought the Northern Whigs against 
Toombs and the Southern constituents. At that mo- 
ment, had it not been for the firmness of the Georgia 
delegation — Toombs, Stephens, and Howell Cobb — the 
disunion movement would have triumphed. The Con- 
stitutional Union Party was the result. 

The fervor of Toombs on one hand and his rash- 
ness on the other were safeguarded by his willingness 
to compromise. He was firm regarding the inviolable 
right of property, and the sovereignty of States; these 
points were well expressed in the Georgia Platform of 
1850. But he was willing to bridge over the impend- 
ing chasm, while Yancey would have rushed headlong 
into the gulf. Still, once convinced of the necessity 
for secession, Toombs advised immediate action. He 
telegraphed to the people of Georgia on December 22, 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 305 

i860 : " Secession by the fourth of March next should 
be thundered from the ballot-box by the unanimous 
voice of Georgia. Such a voice will be your best 
guaranty for liberty, security, tranquility, and glory." 

Whatever the scope of the senatorial documents ex- 
amined, it soon becomes apparent how similar the poHt- 
ical forces confronting each State, yet involving per- 
sonalities of such differing caliber. Yancey would 
never, like Toombs, have grown to revere both Web- 
ster and Clay. Yancey was a party dictator ; Toombs 
deplored " the nurseries of faction." But nevertheless 
the principles for which they both fought were in their 
general effect the same. Like Yancey, Toombs in- 
vaded the North, and in Tremont Temple presented 
his closely argued legal defense of slavery, based upon 
the keenest ideas of constitutional equity. If it were 
possible, with the existing state of slavery, to conceive 
of privilege for the bondmen, Toombs' attitude was in 
many respects a foreshadowed expression of later 
opinion. He believed in free labor, in the wage sys- 
tem, in elementary education for the slave, in skilled 
work ; he upheld the absolute integrity of the races, but 
he could not bring himself to see that one race in a state 
of slavery was a clog in the wheels of progress for the 
other; he was too much the son of Southern civiliza- 
tion, too paternalistic in his own plantation system, to 
see beneath the charm of such an existence the limita- 
tions placed thereby upon the thought of his section. 

The time was one of distortion; what was said off- 
hand, later confronted the speaker in unrecognizable 
terms; it was a period of long talk, when at camp 
meetings, hours were spent in denoting party distinc- 
tions. Toombs' physical power was enormous, and 
nowhere brought into greater contrast than when 
standing by the shrunken form of his friend, Alexander 
H. Stephens. He was emphatic, picturesquely profane, 
convivial to the point of over-indulgence. His elo- 



3o6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

quence in public speech was no greater than his charm 
when conversing with ladies; as his biographer says, 
he was a perfect Chesterfield. During his fugitive 
days, after the fall of the Confederacy, he spent some 
days in hiding at the home of Augusta Evans; there 
he had ample opportunity for satisfying his intellectual 
tastes, since the author of " Inez " was a woman of 
rare mental attainments. When Stephens heard of 
the hospitality extended to his friend by Miss Evans 
and her father^ he wrote to the former : " I cannot 
forbear to thank you and him for it in the same strain 
and terms as if these attentions had been rendered to 
myself. What you did for my friend, in this par- 
ticular, you did for me." 

IV 

The beauty of association between these men of the 
South was as great as the adventurous character of 
their careers. Stephens spoke of Toombs in these 
terms : " His was the greatest mind I ever came in 
contact with. Its operations, even in its errors, re- 
minded me of a mighty waste of waters." On the 
other hand, Toombs' opinion of Stephens was thus 
expressed : " He carried more brains and more soul 
for the least flesh of any man God Almighty ever 
made." 

Though the orators of secession were on the sur- 
face somewhat rash in their speech, they were well 
grounded in their arguments, which were never offered 
haphazard and were never without consuming convic- 
tion back of them. Yancey's life burned out in the 
hour of supreme victory for his secession views; 
Toombs lived to see defeat, and, like many of his asso- 
ciates, to begin anew with all the mental vigor of a 
young man. Like Judah Benjamin, he might have prac- 
ticed successfully abroad, but he preferred, with that 
moral bravery which marked his actions, to return to 





0^>^<2^-C; 



7- 



A photograpli of an oil painting in the State Capitol at Montgomery, Alabama. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 307 

his state and to serve it in its direst need. The inci- 
dents in the lives of these men of the Lower South 
offer excellent materials for fiction; Toombs' evasion 
of Stanton's orders for his arrest is tinged with as 
much excitement as any of the escapades of Belle Boyd, 
the Confederate spy; not only is there the sharp tone 
of suspense, but the social condition which made such 
adventure necessary is vital. 

Stephens' soundness of political view was colored 
wath a natural melancholy of mind; he was given a 
religious fervor which nearly led him into the minis- 
try, and a sensitive m.anner, partly physical, which kept 
him somewhat aloof. In this respect he was not like 
his companion, Toombs, who moved with an excess of 
physical action. Stephens, more than any other 
Southerner of the time, was prompted by moral rea- 
son as well as by sound legal judgment. These two 
men held popular favor without having to court it 
through sacrifice of personal opinion. Stephens, with 
his conservative views, embracing his desire to pre- 
serve the Union and his natural antipathy to slavery, 
held the people of Georgia because of his reasoning, 
which appealed in its logic to common-sense rather 
than to theoretical conviction. Yet, despite the funda- 
mental tone of his character, Stephens was sociable; 
despite the feminine turn to his voice, he was eloquent 
because his speech was not bombastic or evanescent; 
despite his nearness to the scene, his constitutional 
views helped him to formulate opinion which makes 
his " War between the States " an invaluable and re- 
markable document, considering the lack of historical 
perspective. Stephens was more of a statesman than 
any of his immediate associates. 

On reading the formless biography of Stephens by 
Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne, 
one is impressed with his superior professional talent 
which rose above the other attainments of the man. 



3o8 THE LITERATURE OF, THE SOUTH 

That tendency in his youth toward a romantic, emo- 
tional philosophy never developed beyond the average 
firmness of a Scotch-Irish inheritance. He was a man 
of some considerable reading, but his sense of literary 
values was never acute; he was a potential statesman 
limited by the special cause which held him. He 
knew his Jefferson, and perhaps echoed in his letters 
to Linton some of the Jeffersonian excesses of style. 
Note such expressions as this on February 3, 185 1: 
" I am tempted to tell you a secret. It is the secret 
of my life, ... to rise superior to the neglect 
or contumely of the mean of mankind, by doing them 
good instead of harm." 

But if such narrowness, such excess, such unsys- 
tematized learning as Stephens showed, were token 
only of a talent, as his critics seem to think, it was very 
superior, and in public service represented the sane 
side of Southern thought. In the midst of high tem- 
per and unthinking declaration, he stood firm in his 
belief that the election of Lincoln alone did not jus- 
tify the South's withdrawing from the Union; he was 
ever intent on supporting the constitutional effective- 
ness of the Government. He was firm in his belief 
that the South, and especially his own State, Georgia, 
should, to the very extreme limit of the situation, 
abide by all national engagements. Though he 
doubted Lincoln, he would wait until Lincoln justified 
that doubt. In the House of Representatives of 
Georgia, interrupted now and again by Toombs, who 
then, during November, i860, could see nothing but 
ruin with the success of the Black Republicans, Ste- 
phens stood calmly presenting the logic which would 
hold back, for the time being, the spirit of disunion. 
So long as Georgia was sovereign, there was no reason 
to look for any other safeguard than sovereignty. 
Thus far, so Stephens tried to show, — and in doing so 
he aimed to counteract Toombs' final arguments that 
the Union had been a curse, — the " compact " had 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 309 

proven beneficial; Georgia's wealth had steadily in- 
creased. 

Stephens recognized the numberless grievances held 
by the South against the North; he simply advised 
waiting for an act of aggression; he saw that in the 
North, all obligations attached to the Fugitive Slave 
Law had been disregarded. If the South's grievances 
continued to be ignored, if through the efforts of a 
convention no adjustment was reached, then he was 
willing to abide by the Georgia Platform of 1850, 
which practically meant secession. 

Altogether, it was from such sterling qualities as 
Stephens displayed, that the South drew greatest 
strength after the surrender of Lee. He never abated 
in his unswerving desire to stop hostilities; he even 
voted against secession at the time Georgia determined 
to withdraw from the Union. Called to the councils of 
the newly formed Confederate Government, he was 
largely instrumental in basing the Constitution on the 
old instrument. With reluctance, he consented to join 
the cabinet of President Davis, though it was found 
that they were to disagree on details which necessarily 
were opposed, considering the primary views of each. 
He was foremost in the efforts for peace — a move- 
ment which partly grew out of the seceding States* 
distrust of the growing power of the Confederate 
Government. In the midst of threatening gloom 
which portended Reconstruction, he counseled the 
Georgians to accept the inevitable. Only when the 
policy of Congress became excessive did he make the 
pessimistic, though none the less apparent, prediction 
at the time, that American constitutional liberty was 
dead. He was brave in the utterance of his views; 
his history represents an attempt to hold passion in 
abeyance to truth as he saw it. In the Southern Re- 
view Bledsoe attacked him, and he was ready with 
his "The Reviewers Reviewed." 

In the light of Southern civilization, the biographies 



3IO THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of the three men we have thus mentioned as the 
prime factors in the agitation for secession take on 
significant color; the volumes contain excellent data 
for future constructive writing; extensive excerpts 
from sources not accessible to everyone, make a com- 
plete portrait possible. One does not have to accept 
the fulsomeness of DuBose's estimate of Yancey, or 
of Johnston's personal admiration of Stephens, but 
the first-hand material, however loosely hung together, 
is made secure. Stephens' autobiographical notes are 
representative of the Southerners' habit of mind. 

Each State had its leaders who did quite as much 
as Yancey, Toombs, and Stephens in the councils of 
their separate legislatures ; but these three men went 
outside of their special area, and in their persons be- 
came symboHc of the Southern cause. It is well to 
bear in mind the stress under which they worked, so 
that we may appreciate to the full extent the tre- 
mendous solemnity of that terrible moment when the 
Southern Senators withdrew from the Senate Cham- 
ber, as each State proclaimed its ordinance of seces- 
sion. 



In some respects, these men of the secession period 
followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. The 
sovereign States had but one way of rewarding serv- 
ice, and that was by continued exaction of service. 
No sooner was Stephens relieved from the confine- 
ment of prison where the leading "rebelsi"* w^re 
thrown when caught, than Georgia sent him to Con- 
gress; while in 1873 ^^ ^^^ defeated for the Senate 
by General John B. Gordon, he remained in Congress 
until he was called to be Governor in 1882. Toombs 
likewise found much to do for his State, though he 
was deprived of wider service because of his refusal, 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 311, 

like Davis, to take the oath of allegiance. The sur- 
face indication of the effect of withdrawal is contained 
in '' The Bonnie Blue Flag," with words by no means 
classic, and with historical progression by no means 
accurate. In the States that would not at first aid 
the Confederacy, tragedies were enacted that drew 
upon all of a man's fortitude and courage; for in- 
stance, the decision of Lee, and the loneliness of Breck- 
inridge, of Kentucky, who saw his associates leave the 
Senate one by one, and who stood alone, combating 
measures directed against the South, until he resigned 
his political trust to enter the field. 

The farewell speeches of the Southern Senators 
epitomize the Southern view in favor of secession; 
they mark the individual bearing of the men in whom, 
the States were represented. The eloquence and dignity 
of Benjamin could not have been assumed on the 
moment; the defiant picturesqueness of Toombs was 
an embodiment of his whole political attitude — heated 
argument, though not devoid of close reasoning and 
certain judgment, of watchful defence and positive 
control of facts. Perhaps the one showing most feel- 
ing and a flavor of the old-time formal repression was 
Davis, who did not argue as Toombs did, but who 
withdrew after a concise statement of Mississippi's 
sovereign decision and of his own opinion as to the 
significance of the " compact " and of secession which 
was opposed to nullification. These speeches repre- 
sent a decisive moment; they were not the enraged 
outbursts of unthinking men; they should be regarded 
as the culmination of a long series of debates in which 
the antagonism against the South on the part of its 
opposers was greater than the desire for reconciliation. 

Most of these details belong to history and not to 
literature; in a way they explain why the Southern 
people were not deeply concerned with the production 
of books; in a way they likewise suggest the motives 



312 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

likely to actuate any writing which might be done dur- 
ing the actual operation of that social spirit. As 
events transpired, they accentuated a body of tradi- 
tion which is influential to-day. Notwithstanding the 
personal equation, when the Southern Senators took 
their leave they were the most conservative expression 
of the feeling in the South. The new government 
which was formed, — with Montgomery as the first 
seat, — and the exactions of a state of war must have 
had considerable effect, and must have made distinct 
impress upon the Southern manner of looking at things 
and of meeting situations. 

The anti-slavery movement in the South was strong 
— one of the reasons being that religious sentiment 
was strong, but not the least explanation for it being 
that the Southerner was beginning to recognize the 
limitations of forced labor, and its blighting effects 
upon the stronger race. The section was in a disposi- 
tion to listen to compromise on that issue, but the 
constitutional right of secession it would not re- 
linquish, and upon that point stood unmoved. 

J. L. M. Curry, who was a Representative in the 
Confederate Congress, prepared a constitutional analy- 
sis of the legality of secession, which, in view of his 
progressive foresight after the war, we shall take as 
expressing the argument in fair terms ; at least by his 
effort he counteracted his own criticism that "the 
Southern States have shared the fate of all conquered 
peoples. The conquerors write their history." First 
of all, in the original compact there was a common 
recognition of the equality and unrelinquished sover- 
eignty of the parties concerned; and inasmuch as 
the Confederation found it more effective to regulate 
certain business transactions as a single body, they 
created a constitution which in no way sacrificed 
their separate initiative, inasmuch as the Constitution 
was an instrument of their own making. This ar- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 313 

gument did not foresee that the growth of the condi- 
tions necessitating their initial acceptance of a common 
code meant the rehnquishment of further power, as 
the importance of the country increased. It is to be 
remembered that New York was particularly zealous 
about guarding sovereign prerogative. 

Granted that such be the case, the next argument 
was that the people of each State reserved to them- 
selves the privilege of stating when the Constitution 
committed infractions, and within their own borders 
they were at liberty to exercise their fundamental 
authority. Thus we can see in this arrangement the 
opportunity for sectionalism to produce the spirit of 
disunion. In i860, these were minor parts in which 
the seceding States disagreed ; they were divided among 
themselves, until all political policies were dropped 
in the cause of common protection. Had there been 
no war, or as an historian recently declared, had there 
been no Lincoln, the economic and social problems in 
the South would not have changed so radically. But 
while the war settled slavery, though it left the negro 
in a more precarious position, it never dispelled the 
theories of states' rights, which have now spread to 
the Pacific Coast. The two positive effects of the war 
were the shifting of industrial bases in the South, and 
a firmer recognition of the necessity for union — 
well illustrated in the Spanish-American conflict. 

So individual was the State policy, that Curry illus- 
trates its existence by quoting two citizens of South 
Carolina who emphatically declined positions on the 
Supreme Court bench because such would be beneath 
the dignity of a servant of the State. Was the Con- 
stitution to be a myth, a convenience, or. a power, — 
and therefore a menace? The State was both right 
and wrong; its logic, however, did not reckon with 
temperamental variation, which after a while grew 
into sectional differences leading to discrimination. 



314 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

The Southerners, dififering with the North and being 
in the minority, determined, as lovers of the Constitu- 
tion, to resume their sovereign rights, and, by with- 
drawing, to deny the existence of a union which only 
existed so long as the obligations of the Constitution 
were maintained. That they had faith in the instru- 
ment was clearly demonstrated by the Confederate 
Constitution, which was in substance the old document 
modified to meet Southern ideas. Granted finally that 
this was so, secession was the right of each separate 
State whose action might not be disputed by law. 
There is much truth in Curry's statement that "no 
one would now hazard the assertion that if the South- 
ern States had acquiesced in the result of the elections 
of i860, the equality and rights of the Southern States 
•could have continued unimpaired by the unfriendly 
action of the Government at Washington and of the 
Northern States." 

VI 

We are dealing with something more than m.ere 
record when we attempt to realize the spirit which 
moved the first Confederate Convention, assembled 
in Montgomery on February 4, 1861. To judge its dig- 
nity and its sense of deep responsibility, one must con- 
cur with the historian in the belief that the time should 
be measured in terms of issues which, though now 
dead, were then active enough to limit and to con- 
sume the whole thought of a section. Curry was 
right in saying that " it would be as easy for a French 
Liberal of to-day to make himself a Monarchist of 
the time of Louis XIV., or for an English or German 
Protestant to accept and adopt the creed and ritual 
and policy of the Roman Catholic Church of the time 
of Leo X., as for an American citizen to recognize and 
vindicate what the Constitution guaranteed as to 
slavery in i860." To the Southerner, the Union as 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 315 

it then existed was incompatible with the principles 
for which the past statesmen had fought. The whole 
tenor of Stephens' account of the " War between the 
States" was to show that slavery constituted but 
one factor in the problems which lay at the very 
basis of social existence and of economic independence. 
In view of the unthinking reconstruction measures, 
it is safe to say that the representatives of the Con- 
federate States were much surer of their goal at the 
time of secession than the officials of the United States 
government were of theirs when the war ended. The 
act of secession was much more legal than the act of 
emancipation, even though for the time being it was 
less disintegrating in its effect. For even though freed 
from the actual chains of bondage, the negro, until 
demoralized by the Republican bestowal of excessive 
privilege upon him, was still under the good influence 
of plantation training. The very fact that emancipa- 
tion did not immediately lead to insurrection, that 
white women were safe among the blacks while the 
white men were on the field of battle, is sufficient proof 
of this. 

The Confederate Convention was not a lawless 
body; the Confederate armies were not disorganized 
aggregates of purposeless men. Mr. Brown is epi- 
grammatic in his true statement that if we apply the 
term " Rebellion " to this struggle, we approach dan- 
gerously near the point where we glorify rebellion. 
The South had a grievance, and largely a just griev- 
ance, not against the Constitution, but against the man- 
ner in which it had been perverted. This motive 
prompted the assembly to indorse most of the princi- 
ples which had heretofore governed them. Curry is 
much too lenient, however, in explaining the absence 
of brilliant statesmanship in the Confederate body; 
he claimed that community of interests was enough 
to hold together a section whose unpreparedness was 



3i6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

token of belief that peace would soon follow secession. 
They did not seek war ; they wished only a government 
which would fulfill their needs. In this spirit, they 
set about framing a Confederate Constitution. 

Curry's analysis of the Southern temper is particu- 
larly suggestive ; he points to the fact that, with every 
opportunity for the adoption of rash methods, the 
seceded States carefully considered the questions of 
reform they had demanded in Washington ; they were 
at the time surprisingly free from party designs. Not 
only that, but there was no attempt on their part to 
reopen the slave trade, which further demonstrates 
that evolution of Southern opinion against the bond- 
age of the black race which would have come without 
secession. The war only hastened emancipation, with- 
out preparing any adequate mental policy to cope 
with it. 

The open acts of hostility served to hasten the se- 
cession of the States. Virginia, at first hesitant, deter- 
mined to withdraw, after her Governor refused to 
supply troops at Lincoln's call. The border States 
were uncertain factors, often divided and wavering, 
encouraging and repudiating, as in the case of Tennes- 
see, and hence giving little moral strength to the cause. 

Davis's Inaugural Address was dignified but un- 
impassloned; his chief concern was to put the wheels 
of government in motion, wheels which were familiar 
to the people, but whose motion was entrusted co 
new agents. Stephens, in March, 1861, expressed 
himself publicly on the subject of the Confederate 
Constitution. It is his temper rather than his argu- 
ment which is significant — the inclination to criticise 
and to endorse in the same breath. His limitation 
was sectional ; he believed that the fulfillment of South- 
ern requirements would have settled once and for all 
the differences on the subject of policy. To him the 
Confederate Constitution put at rest the disputes about 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 317- 

tariff and internal improvement, stating its unshak- 
able belief in the inferiority of the negro to the white 
man, and to him slavery was in accordance with the 
demands of nature. His conversion to the cause of 
secession was slow and sincere, and, when he addressed 
the citizens of Savannah in 1861, he foresaw the dis- 
integration of the Union, and the ultimate increase of 
the new Confederacy whose Constitution was more 
adequate to him for national existence than the old 
instrument itself. In view of these confident opinions, 
the manner in which the South met defeat is all the 
more remarkable. 

VII 

Aft the outbreak of the Civil War, the South's 
greatest asset was in manhood ; the manner in which 
the armies faced privation and death, the way in which 
they counteracted their deficiency in numbers by ex- 
cellence of generalship on one hand and by the per- 
sonal aspect of the cause for which they were fight- 
ing on the other, are epic in their force. There were 
mistaken ideas about the duration of the conflict at 
first; the North miscalculated the spirit of its oppo- 
nents, the South overestimated its defensive strength. 
As late as 1864, Professor L. Johnson, of Trinity 
College, North Carolina, prepared a sectional arith- 
metic, in which the following problem indicates the 
height of Southern confidence: " If one Confederate 
soldier can whip seven Yankees, how many soldiers 
can whip 49 Yankees?" 

Families dedicated their all in the defense of their 
homes; the enemy was invading the very soil made 
sacred by the institutions which outsiders were seek- 
ing to destroy; students left colleges, ministers gave 
up their pulpits, to go to the front. Among the men 
there was manifest a religious fervor which has never 
been wanting in the South, but which was somewhat 



3i8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

obscured at times by the outward forms leading to 
opposition. The Rev. J. W. Jones compiled a curi- 
ously interesting volume of experiences entitled 
" Christ in the Camp ; or, Religion in Lee's Army," 
which spreads some light on the spiritual condition of 
the soldiers. The Southern leaders were men of Chris- 
tian character — men typified in the persons of Lee and 
Jackson; Bishop Polk left his duties in Georgia to 
assume the rank of Lieutenant-General. Stragglers 
in the faith were converted on the field, and were 
sustained by the example of " Stonewall " Jackson on 
his knees in his tent. 

On the other hand, the South was encouraged by 
the hope that the world's dependence on cotton would 
hasten diplomatic relations which would be of inesti- 
mable advantage to the cause. It is true that England 
did have some sympathy with the secession move- 
ment, but her attitude against slavery, together with 
the effective Union blocking of all European recogni- 
tion of the Confederacy, served to check any positive 
support on her part. Many debates took place in the 
House of Commons as to whether the seceded States 
should be regarded as a nation; but the embassy sent 
by Toombs to London for the purpose of negotiation 
foresaw the strength of moral opposition to servitude. 
Yancey was a member of that commission. Mason 
and Slidell in England and France, Mann in Belgium, 
Rost in Spain, L. Q. C. Lamar in Russia, all struggled 
in vain for the cause; they could not even obtain an 
audible objection from the nations to the blockade, 
which England for example did not consider suffi- 
ciently efifective to necessitate intervention. 

We infer that our representatives were not familiar 
with foreign diplomacy; they were simply special 
pleaders before the world. Perhaps, had reverses not 
befallen Lee in his onward march to Washington, 
France might have declared for the Confederacy, but 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 319 

the foreigners did not have sufficient at stake to come 
to the rescue in a losing game. So determined was 
the stand against slavery that Southern attention was 
now turned toward the question of emancipation; the 
hope for diplomatic success was based on this one 
point. Even in 1864, Davis recommended the enlist- 
ment of negroes, and Benjamin attempted to nego- 
tiate a loan ** on the basis of emancipation and promise 
of cotton." But as far as diplomatic aid was con- 
cerned, the South was " fooled " wherever she turned. 
She was reaping the effects of slavery from a world 
point of view. The Confederate Government was not 
squarely met in any of its diplomatic advances, from 
the time that Martin J. Crawford of Georgia, John 
Forsyth of Alabama, and A. B. Roman of Louisiana 
were sent to Washington, in 1861, as peace commis- 
sioners. It v/as hardly compatible with the sovereignty 
of the United States that she should recognize a re- 
calcitrant section of the country, and Seward prac- 
ticed duplicity, instead of seeking earnestly to discover 
some effective means of adjustment. But the strength 
of outside support was removed from the South; in 
the words of Charles Francis Adams: "The move- 
ments of both science and civilization were behind 
the nationalists." The South had now to face the 
material demands of war; no time was left for fine 
constitutional distinctions. 



VIII 

It is difficult to imagine what the South would 
have done without the moral and practical support 
of its women; theirs was the most exacting task. 
The historian may seek a more official expression of 
the precarious life of the Confederacy, but no more 
human, more vivid descriptions of privation and want 
and anxiety are to be had than those impressions of 



320 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the women of the South, now published in book form. 
Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Pryor, Mrs. Clay-Clopton, are rep- 
resentatives of their class, as well as M. L. Avary, who 
wrote "A Virginia Girl in the Civil War." The ten- 
sion and tragedy of the moment are likewise revealed 
in such romances as Cable's " Kinkaid's Battery " and 
Miss Glasgow's " The Battleground." As John Esten 
Cooke wrote in his " Wearing of the Gray," a volume 
of personal portraits which he dedicated to that cava- 
lier, J. E. B. Stuart, the Civil War was not wholly 
an " official transaction,'* but a drama of life and pas- 
sion and movement. 

The most difficult factors to reconstruct in the 
Southern social life were the women. George Gary 
Eggleston is not alone in his belief that a thoroughly 
reconciled woman-veteran is difficult to find; often the 
humor of the attitude was unthinking, as when the 
old lady regretted that Yankees had to be killed for 
fear they might go to heaven. But there was no tell- 
ing what amount of endurance women experienced 
for the cause; they risked their personal safety when 
escapes had to be made, they bore the long suspense 
and uncertainty of news, they were fearless under 
fire and quick in the hospital; they faced the over- 
whelming signs of death, and, what was more to the 
soldiers, they had implicit trust in the men whom they 
sent to the field. 

In some cities, these women banded themselves into 
secret societies, partly for actual service and partly 
for social intercourse. This was necessary where, for 
instance, Alexandria, Va., was torn in sympathy be- 
tween the Union and the State. A few lines in an 
oath of initiation will bear testimony of the feeling: 

" I swear that I will not marry one who has borne 
arms for the United States against the Confederate 
States, nor a Union man nor a Black Republican nor a 
traitor. So help me God ! " 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 321 

The bitterness, which in a way was righteous, even 
entered the Episcopal service, where all reference to 
the President was omitted, bringing the wrath of the 
Yankee soldiers upon the congregation to such an 
extent that an attempt was made to enforce the proper 
reading of the ritual. 

Whatever strong lines of social caste among women 
may have been drawn before the war, the stress of 
actual conflict soon served to eliminate : both practical 
service and the common utterance of prayer helped to 
draw the women closer together; each class soon 
brought into play the best qualities of the other. There 
was large and varied work to be done; many a 
man might have held back had not a woman's 
love and faith pushed him forward; while he was 
away, he could image to himself his land being cared 
for as well as conditions would allow, food being 
hoarded for him, clothes however crude being fash- 
ioned for him. It was a woman who tended him in 
the final hour; a woman's letter sent him determined 
through shot and shell. Her work perhaps was not 
so much active duty, as silent and slow ingenuity; no 
one could quite lift the pressure of dread from her 
as she sat rolling bandages or sewing powder bags and 
loading cartridges. Alone she had to face marauding 
blue coats; often she was closely cross-examined and 
her cleverness had to evade searching eyes, if by 
chance she possessed any secret information. For 
a woman was often called upon to slip through the 
lines as bearer of dispatches. 

To what extent the feminine ingenuity was pressed, 
is fairly indicated by the following paragraph : " The 
dirt floor of the meat house was boiled for the salt in 
it ; soap made from China-berries and lye ; candles out 
of a resin or waxen rope wound around a corncob; 
ink out of oak-balls, small berries, and rusty nails; 
pins out of thorns; shoes out of canvas and carriage 



2,22 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tops, and with wooden bottoms ; buttons out of persim- 
mon seed; dyes out of roots and barks; tumblers out 
of glass bottles, cut smooth with a heated wire; en- 
velopes from scraps of wall paper; tea out of berry 
leaves; coffee out of sweet potatoes, dandelion seed, 
ground nuts, etc." 

Eggleston's " Rebel's Recollections " are full of the 
atmosphere of the period, but a little sweeping in their 
estimate of Southern motives ; the Southern cause was 
not wholly involved in a futile abstraction, and the 
oratory of secession was not entirely without reason, 
though much of it was vacuous. Speaking for Vir- 
ginia, he describes amusingly how enlistment at first 
was carried on in holiday fashion, much like the State 
encampments of the present. He noted in the Virginia 
ranks the faint distinction between officer and private, 
since both were gentlemen ; the one wide demarkation 
was between the gentry and common people — that line 
still persisted, even though the common man might be 
of superior rank. If rough work was to be done in 
camp, a private often had his servant perform the duty 
in his stead. 

As the war advanced, the stress and strain became 
greater ; larger demands were made upon the resources 
of the Confederacy, the gravest consideration being 
the question of finances, for the currency was without 
value and the custom-duties were decreased through 
the vigilance of the blockade. In immediate efficiency, 
the South was unprepared for war; there was suffi- 
cient food and large quantities of raw material, but 
the means of manufacture were inadequate. In view 
of this condition, what was actually done seems excep- 
tional. Furnaces, mills, railroads, and like factors 
could not be placed immediately at the disposal of the 
Government. According to Brown, it was this defi- 
ciency which detracted from the value of whatever 
resources the South had, '' At the surrender," writes 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 323 

Curry, "there was on the line of railways and rivers, 
between Jackson, Miss., and Montgomery, Ala., 
enough corn to supply the demand for breadstuffs for 
a full twelve month or more." In other words, war 
calls for industrialism, and the South could not meet 
the call, for obvious reasons. The armies went thread- 
bare, and the men were lacking in the necessary small 
arms. The handling of the resources, of which taxa- 
tion was the most precarious question since it brought 
the Confederacy into opposition with the seceded 
States, revealed the inherent weakness of the new Gov- 
ernment. Necessity resulted in forced loans, inflated 
currency, superfluous issuance of notes ; and in conse- 
quence, prices rose to an abnormal heig'ht. By 1864, 
a gold dollar had increased in value to sixty-one, paper 
money; the whole state of affairs resulted in specula- 
tion, in the demoralization of wages. Value lost its 
significance, and what was asked, was paid. These 
weaknesses brought disfavor upon the Confederate 
Government, and especially upon the head of Davis, 
w^ho clogged the wheels with an unnecessary system of 
red tape. Moreover, it became essential to resort to 
trade through the lines, and the Confederacy, from 
strenuously forbidding it, passed through the stage of 
silent acquiescence to actual speculation in United 
States notes. 

Speculation, affecting the social life rather than the 
political solvency of the people, was nowhere better 
exhibited than when a blockade was successfully run. 
Much cotton slipped through the lines and found its 
way, by an indirect route — often across the Mexican 
border — to Europe. Companies were formed in Vir- 
ginia and South Carolina to trade in this arduous 
manner; and a reading of William Watson's " Block- 
ade Runner " will afford some idea of how uncertain 
the outcome was. 

The economic question was the one absorbing topic 



324 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of the day; in 1863, Mrs. Preston paid five dollars a 
bushel for potatoes ; after a long drive to Eufala, Ala., 
• — all of the inland towns suffered most from the ef- 
fects of the blockade, — a lady succeeded in purchasing 
a half-quire of small white note paper for forty dollars, 
while such a luxury as a pair of morocco gaiters 
brought the exorbitant price of $375. Though the 
Government had conflict with the States regarding for- 
eign trade, official control was maintained to the end. 
Whatever goods were not used by the Confederacy 
direct were sold at auction, the merchants reaping a 
fortune, as they proceeded inland from such ports as 
Mobile. And it is a curious anomaly that despite the 
dire need for certain essentials other than medicines, 
the speculative " runners '' brought in more luxuries 
with the hope of greater temptations as a consequence. 
By a system of exorbitant demands on the part of the 
importer, specie was drawn away from general cir- 
culation. From these consequences, Fleming is right 
in surmising that the Union navy crushed the South, 
the blockade runners by their activity prolonging the 
war over a year. The system of smuggling became 
so general that it soon had a demoralizing effect upon 
the people. 

But though provisions were scarce at times, the 
Southerner was an adept at finding substitutes. Often, 
in order to lift the weight of anxiety, pleasures were 
devised from the simplest duties ; even the " home- 
made" luxuries assumed elegant proportions, and to- 
day no better fan may be had than that which, formed 
of turkey-wing feathers, sold in war times for ten or 
twenty dollars apiece. We read descriptions of an 
inland quiet in the South which meant aloofness, iso- 
lation, and where the word Yankee was mentioned in 
folk-tales to frighten children into behavior. 

The rudimentary industry thus indicated constituted 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 325 

only one phase of activity; war necessitated some or- 
ganized method of meeting mihtary needs and general 
demand. The Government itself partly encouraged 
production, offering loans for the manufacture of arms. 
Records indicate that the 48th Alabama, while defend- 
ing Mobile, was supplied with pikes and bowie knives. 
Each State was thus forced to exert itself; so well was 
the condition satisfied that Selma, Alabama, soon be- 
came famed for its cannon. Powder mills sprang up 
in every section, while organized parties, directing 
negro labor, began a systematic search for niter. The 
Confederacy likewise encouraged the iron industry, 
especially in upper Alabama, and labor was easily pro- 
cured for the mines, since the conscripts were only 
too eager to escape the field. According to Fleming, 
the fine quality of iron found in Selma at the close of 
the war first induced Northern capitalists to make in- 
vestments in the iron industry of Northern Alabama. 
The Government not only found it essential to en- 
courage improvement, but the States likewise aided 
manufactures by legislative act; those engaged 
in the work of production were exempt from mili- 
tary service. Cotton factories were burned by the 
Federals, and iron foundries blown up; the South had 
difficulty in protecting its resources. 

With all these uncertain conditions, the war sapped 
the energies of the people ; the hold of the Government 
upon the State became more and more irksome as 
rigorous exactions were imposed. Whenever the Con- 
federacy attempted to regulate interstate commerce, to 
supervise in matters purely local, to make profit in 
instances conflicting with the interests of the sovereign 
people, and to draft upon the State militia, there were 
pronounced opposition and ominous dissatisfaction. 
Confederate weakness fostered the sentiment for a 
Peace Party. 



326 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

IX 

The literature of the South is hardly to be re- 
garded as either directive or progressive; unlike ora- 
tory, it was not formative of opinion, but aimed only 
to preserve the pronounced features of the life with 
which it was so intimately connected. If any new 
feature is to be detected in the prose work of the Civil 
War period, it is that to the retrospective tendency 
already fully dealt with, might be added a realization 
of changing conditions which threatened to obliterate 
the characteristics distinguishing the Old South. 

The writers with whom we have to deal — many of 
them — came in touch with the newer forces which 
laid hold of the South ; but though the attention may 
be riveted upon new things, the face of a civilization 
is not changed in a day. Lee, with all the courtesy 
and chivalry and wisdom of a past era, could not repre- 
sent the spirit of an era to come; he was the flower 
of his period, as the Constitutional statesmen were 
flowers of theirs; he might preach forbearance as a 
way of coping with reconstruction, but it was the 
excellence of a character already formed out of an 
environment different from the present, which directed 
him. And other generals were sustained in like man- 
ner, an old-time flavor coloring their letters and docu- 
ments of war. 

Nowhere shall we find in this prose literature any 
book of exceptional literary excellence; it w-as, how- 
ever, indicative of the taste of Southern readers — a 
taste which augmented the fortune of Augusta Evans 
and welcomed John Esten Cooke. There was not 
much to read in the South during the war ; the block- 
ade very effectively cut off the supply, and necessitated 
a local output which is more interesting in its history 
than in its content. 

The publishers who figured in those days below 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 327 

the Mason and Dixon line manufactured many volumes 
of a military character, printing on paper made from 
cotton and rags, and, because of the chemical crudity, 
resulting in a poor quality of finish. Such a publisher 
as S. H. Goetzel of Mobile was fortunate enough to 
secure " Macaria," and to be the first to place Miss 
Muhlbach on the American market. Many Southern 
libraries still preserve books from this same firm, 
bound, for want of better covers, in gaily figured wall- 
paper. 

Sporadic novels of Confederate life were hastily 
produced, such as McCabe's "The Aide-de-Camp " 
and Dimitry's " Guilty or Not Guilty," w^hile Miss 
Braddon's tales were circulated in the army. The re- 
prints of English books sold at exceptional prices, 
Hugo's " Les Miserables," for instance, printed in five 
parts, bringing ten dollars. In view of the immediate 
need for quinine, it was not to be expected that extrav- 
agance would follow literary channels, yet all types of 
books were printed, and many sporadic papers and 
magazines w^ere founded, pledged to the cause. In Sep- 
tember, 1 86 1, the Southern Monthly was begun in 
Memphis, and The Age (Richmond) was an eclectic 
monthly issued (1864) in the interests of the South. 
Readers had the weekly Southern Illustrated Nezvs, 
the Southern Punch, and the Southern Field and Fire- 
side (Augusta). It is not difficult to realize the strain 
under which these publications w^ent to press, type 
often being set under fire. 

The fervor of Southern sentiment found outlet in 
songs; Mr. Snowden states that a firm in Richmond 
had a list of twenty-nine lyrics and marches, such as 
the ever-popular ''Lorena" (Webster), "The South- 
ern Cross," with words by St. George Tucker, and 
" When this Cruel War is Over," the music for which 
was composed by Henry Tucker. In educational lines 
the feeling was still stronger, the Confederate spelling 



328 THE LITERATURE OE THE SOUTH 

books and primers and arithmetics painting in varying 
colors the iniquity of the Yankees, and the excellences 
of the Southerners. 

But this was simply the light outward expression 
of inward stress and strain; conditions were pressing 
hard upon the land ; periodicals were forced to reduce 
their sizes for want of paper and for lack of paid 
subscribers. The distribution of reading matter is 
well exemplified in the issuance of Bibles and tracts. 
In the North, all religious institutions, save the Ameri- 
can Bible Society, withdrew their support and refused 
to send books to the Confederates. In 1861, a Nash- 
ville house had issued a Confederate Bible, the 
first copy of which was sent to Davis, who was about 
to take oath of office. The Southern Tract Society was 
also active, publishing about one hundred and seventy 
different pamphlets for the soldiers, besides a special 
hymn book. 

Out of such forces as have been here outlined, 
there should have emanated some distinct expression 
of Hfe. But in literary outlook the South did not 
advance one step, content to follow old standards, and 
giving way before the newer treatment. For, as 
Cooke himself wrote : " Mr. Howells and the other 
realists have crowded me out of the popular regard as 
a novelist, and have brought the kind of fiction I write 
into general disfavor. I do not complain of that, 
for they are right. They see, as I do, that fiction 
should faithfully reflect life, and they obey the law, 
while I was born too soon and am now too old to 
learn my trade anew." 

Something immeasurably sad surrounds the final 
days of John Esten Cooke (1830- 1886). He was the 
sentimental historian who did much for Virginia, but 
who, with that tendency to cherish memory, allowed 
feeling to becloud the vividness of impression. The 
manner in which he dealt with record was picturesque 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 329 

and effective ; his commingling of historic fact with 
fiction is indicative of his famiHarity (with Cooper, 
though lacking in the originality of the latter. We 
turn to "The Virginia Comedians" for as excellent 
a picture of colonial atmosphere as may be had ; therein 
are courtesy and cultured feeling blended with a full 
amount of close study. It is perhaps replete with 
descriptions, in essay form, of manners and customs 
peculiar to the soil, characteristics which made Ken- 
nedy's " Barn Swallow " more description than novel. 
But Cooke was very largely the romanticist, and the 
tendency on his part to treasure small detail swelled 
unduly the proportions of his biographies of Jackson 
and Lee. 

Still, there is an advantage in such treasuring — 
that it preserves impressions which are quickly evanes- 
cent and easily forgotten. Cooke and his successor, 
Thomas Nelson Page, will give plentiful atmosphere 
to the historian of the future. When we read of 
Jackson and of Stuart, as described by Cooke, we un- 
failingly feel that association alone could have pro- 
duced the warmth and glow which illumine the por- 
trait; for that is what it is — not, according to later 
methods, an estimate. Cooke fought in the war and 
came in contact with the figures he afterwards used 
in his fiction; it was probably the fullness of his 
remembrance which made him overcrowd " Surrey 
of Eagle's Nest," a stirring account of the Civil War, 
if not a perfect one. 

His novels, romances, and essays show him largely 
as the historian of Virginia; the old-fashioned training 
which was his, produced in him the tendency to over- 
accentuate both motive and situation ; yet for all that, 
he was popular and deservedly so. He described the 
life with which he was closest in touch, and showed no 
desire to forsake his tradition or to deny others the 
future inevitably in store for them. As a measure 



330 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of his historical view, it is of decided benefit to con- 
trast his "Virginia," — a contribution to the Ameri- 
can Commonwealth series — with Professor Shaler's 
" Kentucky." 

This much has to be borne in mind about Cooke, 
in comparison with some of his contemporaries, — that 
he never forsook his environment, that the improba- 
biHties in his stories were faults of plot rather than 
falsifications of fact and motive. He was descended 
from an illustrious family of literary cavaliers, and 
he epitomized their spirit; his stories could have been 
laid nowhere but in Virginia. 

In two essential respects, therefore, does Cooke dif- 
fer from Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson (183 5- 1909). 
First of all, save for the fact that in temperament, 
feeling, and moral bearing, the latter is product of 
Southern training, her stories might as well be placed 
in a foreign clime as in her own country. This 
may be largely due to a tendency to make use of fea- 
tures uncommon to the Southern landscape. The 
romanticism of the old-fashioned school of fiction was 
over-ef¥ulgent and indefinite. Then, it must be noted 
that Mrs. Wilson was generally indifferent to historical 
growth, an indifference which soon found persistent 
expression against the trend of modern development. 
In a word, she became a champion of old methods. 

Such a style as Mrs. Wilson adopted was no real 
measure of her exceptional brilliancy as a woman. 
Through its very repleteness, it obscured a tendency 
to be lyrical in her philosophic thought; it over- 
weighted a certain poetic beauty of idea, a certain high 
seriousness of spirituality, a certain picturesqueness of 
abstract statement. It leads one falsely to believe that 
her knowledge was esoteric and exoteric, whereas, we 
know her to have been versed, as. no other Southern 
woman of her time was versed, in unusual learning. 
Mrs. Wilson was not superficial, though her display 




AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 331 

of information laid her open to the charge; she did 
not possess a pseudo-culture, though her extravagant 
bestowal of reason upon inappropriate characters sub- 
jects her to the criticism ; she was not insincere, though 
an unnecessary display concealed the simple fervor 
of her intention. In the final estimate, it will be 
determined that Mrs. Wilson was a very noteworthy 
representative of a literary genre which, while it lasted, 
brought with it a healthy, wide enjoyment, and an 
emotional appeal which, drawing plentifully upon 
warm sentiment, treasured a romantic spirit the world 
would be the poorer without. 

These novelists of the old type are handicapped for 
the future by the very excellences which made them 
popular in the past. Mrs. Wilson was a most vital 
expression of that Southern taste which, classical 
rather than imitative, flourished upon Meredith's 
" Lucile " and Bulwer's " The Lady of Lyons." No 
one, in the face of literary fact, would deny the won- 
derful hold Mrs. Wilson had upon her reading pub- 
lic — all the more remarkable because, from 1858, when 
" Inez '' was first published, she represented a feminine 
example of the successful Southern literary worker — 
so successful, indeed, that publishers offered her large 
sums in view of the unprecedented sales of previous 
works. She was a " best-seller " for many years, and 
her appeal spread beyond sectional interest. There 
is no measure of the pure enjoyment drawn by all 
classes from the novels of " Augusta Evans." 

Mrs. Wilson's variety consists in the mechanism of 
plot, and in the small details of outward character. 
The moral color of her work is much the same, and for 
that reason, one book is not unlike the other. There 
is melodrama both in "At the Mercy of Tiberius" 
and " Infelice," but the psychological matrices are 
similar, because the author is what she is. Mrs. Wil- 
son's characters are all children of her own belief. 



332 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of her own opinion. Of their kind, they vary in de- 
grees of excellence, and not in spiritual value; model- 
ing is done over the same fundamental framework. 
And because the basis of Mrs. Wilson's faith was 
essentially pure, she had a genuine power of illumining 
the commonplace expressions of life with a light com- 
ing from inherent qualities, rather than from any 
superimposed and artificial source. 

To analyze her style is unfair, for it was peculiar 
to a fashion now extinct — a fashion where sonorous- 
ness was an essential test of value, and where one was 
satisfied with the "tone" of the whole. The novels 
of this class must be accepted in total effect, in whole 
impression. It was the literary habit of the day to 
crowd the page with Latin, French, and Italian 
phrases, just as no chapter might begin without a 
quotation from an unfamiliar poem or play. But 
while such excrescences overwhelm any great sponta- 
neity in Mrs. Wilson's case, she was only adhering 
to an accepted formula ; perhaps she overdid it, as any 
devotee is likely to do ; probably she carried too far 
her facile aptitude in the use of simile and metaphor. 
Notwithstanding these blemishes, her books contain 
purple patches of eloquence which constitute no ordi- 
nary literature. 

Despite Mrs. Wilson's opposition to that forward 
movement which brought certain freedom to women 
through serviceable education, there is small doubt 
that her opposition only made her. realize the more 
poignantly how futile her fight. Unlike Cooke, she 
did not succumb, but struggled bravely to the last. 
She anchored herself as a fixed point in the maelstrom 
of scientific revelation which carried Tennyson in its 
current, stamping his philosophy as distinctively nine- 
teenth century. There was no blind, obstinate oppo- 
sition on Mrs. Wilson's part; her intellect was forceful 
enough to argue, but it was not sufficiently pliable to 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 333 

be modified by what passed through it. She was 
deeply read and she followed the trend of research, 
the rise of new forces in her time. The South was 
not receptive to new ideas, and the limitations of her 
section were imposed upon Mrs. Wilson. It is our 
impression that had the historic sense been what it 
is to-day, that had there been brought forcefully to 
Mrs. Wilson the widening of knowledge which only 
enriches certain aspects of faith, she would have been 
carried forward. For some of her best powers were 
exerted in an effort to back water. Cleverness will not 
succeed in this; if Mrs. Wilson remained firm, it vv^as 
through the rare qualities of her feminine strength. 

Sermons and essays may be lifted bodily from the 
pages of Mrs. Wilson's books; they are her personal 
impressions, her earnest utterances concerning the 
mysteries of life. These are shot through in places 
with very keen sentences — the concentrated essence of 
.some big truths. Coming, as they did, at a time when 
Southern literature was dominantly reminiscent, these 
expressions of transcendental views, these critical analy- 
ses of the ethics of action, of the morality of relation- 
ship, gave her a unique place in the South. She was 
^ome new force-^according to that conservatism which 
accepted without question or reason — a daring force, 
since Mrs. Wilson not only questioned and reasoned, 
but opposed. In her, we may. measure the current 
opinion regarding education for women, regarding the 
eventual reconciliation of science with religion, and 
regarding eternal truths which none the less are true, 
whatever the manner of expression. 

Essentially, Mrs. Wilson was of a religious cast 
of mind; this is one reason why her work is so per- 
sonal. Yet in her opposition to scientific challenge, 
she was not pecuHar; she was part of an era in which 
biological revelation was not generally accepted, and 
was only sparingly acknowledged. It is therefore not 



334 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

only fair, but necessary, that she be valued in terms 
of i860. This is the critical way of placing Mrs. 
Wilson, but she rises beyond the comparative stand- 
ard by a human test which transcends all others. 
Where Simms, and Kennedy, and Tucker, and a host 
of associates are buried beheath newer fashions, Mrs. 
Wilson persists. This is not because of any modern 
spirit. An interesting attempt w^as made by her, 
when in " A Speckled Bird " she tried to keep abreast 
of present sympathy; but she was forced to return 
to her well-tried methods, and so "Devota" is her 
final word, as it was her first word in earlier novels, 
upon social change. 

We may well wonder, nevertheless, whether Mrs. 
Wilson is to be any the more held accountable for al- 
lowing whole essays to pass through the minds of her 
characters under emotion, than Mrs. Edith Wharton, 
whose stories are so largely consumed in psychological 
examination. The difference is purely one of literary 
fashions, and Mrs. Wilson's peculiarities of style were 
in vogue until Mr. Howells turned the tide. And 
now we wait another pioneer to free fiction from cer- 
tain earmarks bequeathed it by the school of natural- 
ism. 

Open " Infelice," and the eye grasps sentences of 
overwhelming length and obscurity; the reader does 
not need to understand the meaning disguised by an 
unfamihar language; the blur of exceptional phrases 
was a requisite factor in such style. The old-fash- 
ioned novelist was led to touch the emotions at vital 
moments, marked by outward situation. This is the 
essential demand of melodrama — emotionalism, cou- 
pled with excessive movement as indicative of inward 
struggle ; it was, as we have said, the literary fashion 
of the day, and Mrs. Wilson was in the literary 
stream of which " Camille '' was the starting point. 
Augustin Daly was reaping a fortune in such matter ; 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 335 

Dion Bouclcault was past-master in the art ; " The 
Two Orphans " thrilled the theater. 

In the very face of the fact that " Inez " dealt with 
the Mexican War, that "Macaria" (issued under the 
Confederate copyright) was evolved from the travail 
of a Civil War experience, and that "A Speckled 
Bird'' represents the precarious conditions of Recon- 
struction, Mrs. Wilson only dimly realized the historic 
sense. Political opinion creates general feeling, and 
throughout the pages of " Macaria " the impression of 
that feeling is indicated. Mrs. Wilson's examination 
of conditions was cursory, her interest in social forces 
threatening the status of Southern life v/as instructive. 
It was as much a part of Southern culture to assume 
this individual personal view, as it was the South's 
one weapon of self-defense to ignore the far-reaching 
vision. That is why in writing " Macaria," Mrs. Wil- 
son subjected herself to criticism from the North, 
among readers who would accept her emotionalism 
but not her sectionalism. 

In point of execution, " At the Mercy of Tiberius " 
is Mrs. Wilson's most consistent novel, excellent in 
characterization, human in motive and logical in se- 
quence ; " St. Elmo," quite in accord with " Jane 
Eyre," illustrates her spiritual attitude toward skep- 
ticism, and as well, in the portraiture of Edna Earl, 
demonstrates the old-fashioned novelist's lack of ap- 
propriateness in attributing thoughts of a philosophic 
tendency to untutored minds. 

Autobiographically, " Beulah " is an expression of 
Mrs. Wilson's intense faith; however, it is hardly 
possible to confine this personal tone and inclination 
to a single volume. In her books, it is Mrs. Wilson 
who is always thinking ; here again she exhibits a fail- 
ing of her " school " — the inability to detach her char- 
acters and paint them in consonance with their charac- 
teristics. But an exceptional quality of her talent 



336 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

rested in her power of absorption — not only of varied 
philosophical systems, but of special details. She 
imbibed Eastern mysticism, and gave it the color of 
her personal equation in " Vashti " ; she was endowed 
with an exceptional gift of visual imagination, which 
made an actual visit to India unnecessary in describing 
the brilliancy of a fictitious scene. 

To do an author of this type full justice, her general 
acceptance must guarantee her social worth, if not her 
art excellence. During Mrs. Wilson's supremacy, she 
was a species of pioneer; she differed from the school 
of novelists she knew — Disraeli, Miss Taylor, the 
author of " Frankenstein," and others — in that deadly 
romanticism was relieved by mental activity. The 
women of her stories were not passive ; if, in the cata- 
loguing of their physical endowments, she followed the 
usual conceptions, she thought for them. The positive 
merit of such work lies in the high seriousness of its 
intent — a seriousness which quite often is untinctured 
by the existence of any beneficent humor. In its 
broader analysis, it possesses a sound belief, and rec- 
ognizes the presence of the essentials of progress with- 
out accepting them. Mrs. Wilson was ever true to 
that one stand, and her utterance to the women of the 
present sounded the note of her social attitude. " I 
believe," so she wrote, " that the day which endows 
women with the elective franchise will be one of the 
blackest in the annals of this country, and will ring 
the death-knell of modern civilization, national pros- 
perity, social morality, and domestic happiness. Every 
exciting political election will then witness the revolt- 
ing deeds perpetrated by the furies who assisted in 
the storming of the Tuileries, and a repetition of the 
scenes enacted during the reign of the Paris Commune 
will mournfully attest how terrible is the female nature 
when perverted." 

Mrs. Wilson has a right to be emphasized above 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 337 

all others of her period, because, while not affecting 
taste profoundly, she most emphatically satisfied taste 
and met a popular widespread demand. There is per- 
haps more Southern flavor of the cavalier kind in 
Sarah Anne Dorsey (1829- 1879) ^"^ in Mrs. Ter- 
hune ("Marion Harland," 1830-), but in her per- 
son, as well as in her work, Mrs. Wilson represents 
a significant, no less than a beneficent, stage in the 
evolution of Southern thought. 

James Gibson Johnson has recently compiled a 
"Bibliography of Southern Fiction Prior to i860"; 
the very titles are sufficient commentary on the charac- 
ter of the majority of stories. Writers like Mrs. E. 
D. E. N. Southworth, w^hose appeal did not rise above 
the level of the New York Ledger, exhibited no spe- 
cial trait; they were marked by inane purpose and 
misdirected sensation. They knew only that species 
of emotionalism and of sentimentalism which per- 
meates the pages of "Retribution" (1849) ^n<^ 
" Changed Brides," or Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz's 
(1800-1856) "A Planter's Northern Bride." It was 
expected that novels would contain impressions of a 
land fostering a peculiar civilization; everyone pos- 
sessed " views," from the Old Gentleman of the Black 
Stock to the Northern Governor in a strange regime. 
Occasionally, adventure broke from locality, and we 
find the Rev. Francis R. Goulding (1810-1881) writ- 
ing "The Young Marooners" and "Maropners' Is- 
land" in a general spirit of novelty. 

But, remembering the prose work accomplished be- 
fore the beginning of the new order, we may well 
note that the break from one generation to another was 
not so violent as Cooke's pessimistic acquiescence 
would indicate. That is the usual way with the evo- 
lution of method; there are always bridges across 
chasms: Lanier showing the possibility of broader 
thinking in the South; Grady and Watterson linking 



338 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the traditions of personal journalism with impersonal 
news-gathering; Curry connecting the old school con- 
ditions with the new; Richard Malcolm Johnston up- 
holding the sense of locality so well begun by Baldwin 
and Longstreet, and thereby representing a mean be- 
tween them and Joel Chandler Harris. That we are 
unable to link Mrs. Wilson with the present is due to 
her aloofness from the condition of her time, and her 
complete identification with the spiritual tenor of her 
time. But that in no way detracts from her distinc- 
tive and honored place in Southern letters. 



CHAPTER XIV 
SOUTHERN POETRY OF THE CIVIL WAR 
Being a Consideration of Confederate Lyrics 



Out of the Civil War period has come some of the 
'best poetry the South has created thus far, represent- 
ing simultaneously its distinction of character and its 
tragedy. We reach an intermediate stage where, 
though conditions were paralyzed by brand and sword 
and death, the old civilization was giving way before 
the new. The war itself was not the immediate cause 
of this shifting, though its results hastened adjust- 
ment under circumstances which revealed the noblest 
qualities of Southern manhood. But unless the evolu- 
tionary process had already taken hold of the economic 
and social life, revolution would have left the South 
wholly destitute of a starting point. The cessation of 
hostilities meant that the Southern people took up the 
burden where they had left it to go on the battle-field 
— resumed their existence where they began to modify 
it in the light of responsibilities which slavery had not 
imposed upon them, but which emancipation exacted. 
The war left for the South the legacy of defeat, and 
also the negro, loosed from his moorings and given a 
political status. 

The war poet of the South was born in ante-bellum 
days; representative of the Old South, yet he was 
given to realize the nearness of the New. Even in his 
own song there rise faint murmurs of dissatisfaction 
with the limitations of his environment — ^the same dis- 

339 



340 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

satisfaction which prompted the commercial conven- 
tions for the purpose of stimulating sectional manufac- 
tures (a confession that King Cotton was too despotic), 
and which developed throughout the South a strong 
feeling against secession and against war. 

When the time came for the Southern poet to be 
martial, he composed lyrics of exceptional strain; he 
sent forth song marked by purity and intensity, w^hich 
gave no thought to form, yet which, by the complete- 
ness of its impulse, took form with no seeming effort. 
He did not aim for artifice, and so, we find, as in all 
war poetry, that his expression was part of that over- 
whelming response he gave to the current event and 
to the man of the hour. 

It were hardjy possible for us to claim that South- 
ern poetry could boast of a tradition at this time ; its 
inheritance of sentiment had now grown to be some- 
thing distinctly local, but its bulk of verse was imita- 
tive in technique and not progressive in thought. Yet 
what one might designate as the only " school of 
poetry" in the South was formed about this time; it 
grew out of no reaction against poetic form or poetic 
thought, but constituted a determined stand against 
isolation — a stand which, though it did not often take 
Hayne away from the barren vicinity of " Copse 
Hill," or make Ticknor anything more than an am- 
bulatory country physician with a rare lyric gift, never- 
theless resulted in a literary sympathy which brought 
them closer together. We find Hayne in lengthy cor- 
respondence with Mrs. Preston, and the letters between 
these two indicate that they have put aside for a time 
the reading of the Gentleman of the Black Stock, and 
are following the current of the day in England, mar- 
veling at the infusion of science into the realm of 
religion, so clearly evident in Tennyson. In this 
"school" we note the expression of frank criticism 
and the desire to analyze the structure of verse. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 341 

Lanier writes of Hayne, and the latter nurtures the 
genius of Timrod. They all possessed faith in their 
art, and this faith brought them together in common 
spirit. Hayne and Mrs. Preston never met, yet it was 
the latter who wrote the introduction to the memorial 
edition of the former's work. It was not a blind en- 
thusiasm, it was no untutored love for poetry, that 
marked the constant interchange of opinion. 

The poet of the South reflected the whole response 
of the South during the war; every change of feeling 
was caught and was perpetuated in song. The sol- 
diers were not professionals, though Southern leader- 
ship owed much to professional training; each man 
had something to defend, someone to protect ; the slave 
perhaps had hastened the conflict, but it was the home 
that filled the Confederate with the genius of the 
warrior. The lyric call across the field gave him a 
firmer grasp of his sword. 

But afterwards, when the plow turned up shot and 
shell, when he tried to repair the ravages of the in- 
vader, when he took account of the alien black, the 
Southerner had little time for song ; he fell back upon 
his past as the foundation upon which to take note of 
tlie future. The atmosphere was not one in which to 
encourage the poet ; Hayne and Timrod and Ticknor 
were cursed with the poverty of their lives, and of 
them all only Lanier succeeded, after heroic struggle, 
in throwing the obstacles aside. Hayne, stung by the 
lack of support given to the literary worker after the 
war, so far lost self-control as to cry out against 
the lack of any feeling for culture in the South. But 
the critic must not lose sight of the fact that though 
the North made political adjustment in the South very 
difficult, it was in the North that the literary voice 
of the South was again encouraged. The reminiscent 
note in that voice did not succeed in immediately alter- 
ing the false outside impressions held of the South; 



342 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the spirit of criticism could not come until the scars 
of war had grown callous to challenge. 

The school of poetry nevertheless persisted, main- 
tained largely in its faith by the richness of its inherit- 
ance ; its one large figure was Lanier, and, apart from 
artistry of his work, there is a reason for his position. 
Hayne and Timrod, in the vigor of battle and in the 
tragedy of defeat, were men of the Old Regime. The 
mental virility of Lanier responded to the trend of 
conditions; in him we find typified a pioneer of the 
New South — the poet of adjustment. 



II 

War poetry is the outburst of inward fervor; it 
represents the immediate outlet of intense feeling, and 
is prompted wholly by that feeling, with no thought 
beyond its immediate value. It represents response 
to incident, it centers upon heroic occurrence and lead- 
ership, it measures emotion under pressure. As far 
as temper is concerned, it stretches from the martial 
note to the sentimental strain, from *' Maryland " to 
*' Lorena " ; in it are to be found the extremes of 
bearing, from *'The Bonnie Blue Flag'* to "The 
Conquered Banner." Even in the individual this 
change was forced, as in Judge Requier's "Our Faith 
in '6i" and "Ashes of Glory." 

The fate of a war song is always uncertain. Like 
"My Maryland," it is usually tucked away in some 
obscure corner of a local paper (in this instance the 
New Orleans Delta), and spreads, unknown to the 
author, until it bursts forth as possession of a whole 
people. Its music is rarely original, but identification 
usually lends it a distinct originality. The all-essen- 
tial factor is to effect a union between words and 
music that will embody the inward aspirations of the 
greatest numbers, and express an inui...diate sentiment. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 343 

It is written in the heat of the hour, either during 
suspense or within actual range of conflict ; authorship 
becomes the least claim war poetry has on the future. 

The birth of war song is oftenest the resurrection 
of an older strain, and under different conditions. It 
was a girl, Miss Jenny Gary, who fitted " My Mary- 
land " to " Lauriger Horatius,'' which the Germans per- 
petuate in " Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum," and sang 
the same to Beauregard's soldiers in camp. " Dixie," 
hallowed and, by now, well-nigh national, was first 
heard, as a song, on the minstrel platform, where its 
author, Daniel Decatur Emmett, appeared ; but though 
the first mention of it is found in January, 1859, when 
Bryant's troupe was in New York, the Montgomery 
Advertiser claims that even before this, the air was 
made familiar in Alabama. Professor Matthews has 
unearthed^' The Irish Jaunting Gar," — a song which 
used to amuse theater audiences, and which after- 
wards became the air for *^ The Bonnie Blue Flag." 

The armies. North and South, each called forth, 
after the manner of their environment, a body of song 
which in its formal expression was not dissimilar, 
but which in its topic and in its special sentiment, re- 
flected the separateness of political aim and of per- 
sonal view. Here it is not our object to show wherein 
this difference lay. On both sides of the Mason and 
Dixon line picturesque incident of like humanity was 
not wanting; the only distinguishing mark was the 
gray coat of "Lorena" and the blue coat of ''The 
Girl I Left Behind Me." But our attention must be 
centered on the South, where we shall find the song 
differing from that of the North in the difference of 
strategic viewpoint, and in the final destiny of war. 
The land was wakened by the tread of brothers at 
strife; on one side "John Brown's Body," "Marching 
Through Georgia," "The Battle Hymn of the Repub- 
lic," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are 



344 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Marching," brought strength to the ranks; on the 
other there were only needed the strains of " Dixie " 
to tighten lagging hearts to renewed purpose. 

There are varied ways of systematizing the type of 
war poetry in the South. In his compendious volume 
of " Poems of American History," Mr. Stevenson sug- 
gests the historical treatment, and a glance through 
the many compilations justifies one in such a consider- 
ation. War poetry is the fever chart of conflict. The 
Northern poets sang a different song about the slave 
than the Southern poets; Lowell and Whittier, before 
the outbreak, were inspired by the intense fanaticism 
of the abolition movement, far different from the spirit 
prompting Grayson's " The Hireling and the Slave," 
in defense of the institution. Then came actual con- 
flict, and while Bryant penned " Our Country's Call," 
Pike wrote "Dixie," Timrod conceived "A Cry to 
Arms," and Ketchum sent forth "The Bonnie Blue 
Flag." The general sentiment rang in the appeals 
that came as inspiration, and served as inspiration — 
that called upon all tradition, and fired within one the 
most intimate and personal responsibility. Ran- 
dall's " Maryland " and Timrod's " Carolina " show a 
similar attitude toward separate States. Critically, one 
might say, as one will undoubtedly conclude after ex- 
amining the facts, that one of the weaknesses of the 
Confederacy was the lack of union sentiment in the 
face of sovereign claims; each State had its history, 
its sons, its problems; each State felt itself endan- 
gered by the tread of the despot. But as the war 
advanced, the sacred bond of blood drew the sentiment 
closer and made the artistic expression similar. 

The tragedy of the war is writ in verse ; its progress 
finds record in the changing tone of song. Note the 
prismatic variation of Miss Mason's "The Southern 
Poems of the War " ; match these expressions with the 
actual events in history; little did St. George Tucker 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 345 

think that his first poem of the war, "The Southern 
Cross," imitating " The Star-spangled Banner," would 
be followed by such scenes as marked the conflict. 
We have battle hymns and songs, prayers of suspense 
from mother and soldier alike, ballads of charges and 
individual bravery. Then the poems to the dead — 
such poems written by Flash, Dr. Palmer, and Mrs. 
Preston when " Stonewall " Jackson fell ; such excel- 
lent examples of the ballad spirit as Randall's " Pel- 
ham " and J. E. Cooke's " Band of Pines " ; as Mrs. 
Preston's "Ashby" and Thompson's verses on the 
same ; as Flash's " Zollicoffer " and Thompson's " Bur- 
ial of Latane" and " Stuart's Obsequies." The spirit 
of faith and the fire of warriors pulsed through these 
lines; facing death. Southerners yet bethought them of 
glory which is honor and sacrifice. They were not 
alone in this; in the North there was much the same 
bravery, but it is one thing to dedicate one's life to a 
cause, and another thing to find one's tradition threat- 
ened. And the tradition of birth and accomplishment 
is part of the brain and sinew of life, and must be ap- 
pealed to in a personal way. Death indeed through- 
out the South did not stand for decoration, but for 
consecration. 

War poetry is the quick record of passing incident; 
its story, if it has one to tell, epitomizes the simple 
appeal to a broad and sweeping emotion. With the 
fervor of Tom Moore's " Minstrel Boy," were wTitten 
Ticknor's "Little Giffin of Tennessee " and Dr. Moses' 
"Little Sergeant Banks." The word "rebel" rings 
throughout the verse, for the South knew that action 
lifted the word into fame, not as a badge of ignominy, 
however much it represents mistaken policy, but as a 
special privilege. You detect in these poems the con- 
stant note of pathos, but oftenest the stirring appeal, 
akin to what O'Hara in "The Bivouac of the Dead " 
so fittingly described as "the rapture of the fight," 



346 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

and which Pike sounded in " Southrons, hear your 
country call you." 

As the battles came and went, they left in their 
wake descriptive verses such as followed Manassas, 
when Beauregard was perpetuated by every lyric voice 
in song". Leadership was exalted beyond the mere 
plane of hero-worship — w^on by something subtler 
than control, and more holding than brilliancy of en- 
deavor — a spiritual force such as Lee excited, when an 
army of fifteen thousand passed by the sleeping chief 
in silence lest he wake. Those were the hours of con- 
trasts, when danger lurked in the night-time for the 
sentry in the ballad, " All Quiet Along the Potomac 
To-night," when death did not bring even the solace 
of finding the dead, but added the sting of counting 
the missing. As the lost cause became weaker, it 
grew more holy. One might venture to call the Con- 
federate soldier inspired with something of the Cru- 
sader's zealous fervor, for the land was drained in 
order to fill the ranks. No wonder the verse writers 
conceived such sentiments as " Too Young to Die." 

Then came the surrender, and the realization that 
the four years* sacrifice meant defeat. " Moina's " 
(Father Ryan's) ''The Sword of Robert Lee" 
throbs with the cumulative agony and pride and love 
of a weary land; it was not alone ''The Conquered 
Banner " that drooped. But only for a while were 
the hopes of the South paralyzed — during the period 
of slow realization and the gradual resumption 
of daily pursuits. The lyric strain of hope shot 
through the almost overwhelming reaction of despair 
after a brilliant, but in a sense useless, battle. Tim- 
rod, among his matchless lines, wrote on " Spring," 
where the pain and beauty of the South were mingled 
in almost perfect song. In the midst of war, the soldier 
fought to keep the invader from the land^ which was 
his birthright in a deeper sense than citizenship; the 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 347 

Southerner was attached to his soil ; generations never 
moved; generally speaking, they were not migratory. 
So that, if the seasons found the land resounding 
with the tread of marching armies, the idleness of 
peace found the fields and highroads marked every- 
where with ravages of war. When Major S. A. Jonas 
took the worthless " Confederate Note " and penned 
upon its back the celebrated lines beginning, " Repre- 
senting nothing on God's earth now," he expressed 
the tone of the South, not yet determined to work its 
way out of the cruel evidences of war everywhere; 
there was a trail to the sea that had to be covered by 
the plow; pride had to make use of the test of self- 
control. It was not easy, yet it was eventually done. 
The very sentiment of the South after the war became 
epic in its grandeur, yet the poets were not technically 
equal to the task ; perhaps it were fairer to claim 
that the immediate practical need gave them no time. 
Tennyson furnished them with form when they wished 
it; Southern war poetry lilts the same meter as 
*' Locksley Hall," and echoes the spirit of " The Charge 
of the Light Brigade." The newspapers printed imita- 
tions of " The Star-spangled Banner," and beginning 
in New Orleans, " The Marseillaise " was setting for 
innumerable songs. Such lines as " A soldier boy 
from Bourbon lay gasping on the field," strike famil- 
iarly upon the ear, and Tom Hood's "The Bridge 
of Sighs " was used in variation ; while it seemed al- 
most inevitable, when Beauregard appealed to the 
Southern people to melt their bells for cannon, that 
Poe should be imitated. But what, after all, is the 
technique in a time such as war ? The minstrel's power 
is to instill resolution and strength, and to stir by 
clarion note and dirge. This Southern war poetry 
did, and excellently well; it came almost coincident 
with action,' and was pure in its simple sincerity. It is 
the essence of a lost cause, the heart expression of 



348 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the Confederacy; but more than that, it represents a 
thoroughly human strain under vital condition. If 
you test it from the outside, its martial character, its 
description, its feelings, are not bombastic, not forced, 
not monotonous. But being occasional poetry, one 
must judge it by the occasion. 



in 

It seems to be the set purpose of some critics to 
deny excellence to the Southern war lyric, but rash 
statement cannot refute evidence. We know not 
which is more harmful, however, ignorance or over- 
valuation, and the publication of " complete works " 
has obscured the separate existence of true song. 
Henry Rootes Jackson's (1820-1898) "The Red Old 
Hills of Georgia," in his volume " Tallulah, and Other 
Poems," reflects the local feeling which prompted regi- 
ments on the march; Henry Lynden Flash (1835-) 
would have much more claim to attention in isolated 
examples than in the volume with its introductory let- 
ter — a collection which is over-burdened with com- 
monplace expression and uneven verse. But Flash was 
the typical dabbler in rhyme, a business man, journal- 
ist, and soldier, and the casual craftsman writing 
rapidly and taking scant time to refine what was 
framed in the heat of the moment. In their day, 
poems have been praised, but the distilling process of 
time does not consider as all-essential the impulse of 
creation ; the living literature holds to the eternal veri- 
ties of art, of which feeling is only one element. These 
men, strange to say, were restive, democratic in their 
civic relations, yet carrying with them their Southern 
trust in the heart. Flash wandered from Ohio, 
through Alabama to Texas, thence to California ; Pike 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 349 

went from Massachusetts to Arkansas. There was no 
settled point of contact, no determined point of view; 
in fact, there was no spiritual unity, and no all-absorb- 
ing belief in the poet's mission ; it was enough that one 
felt the call without troubling about the technique. 

When we consider Hayne, we shall refer to the 
excellence of his son, William Hamilton, in the lighter, 
miniature verse. Inevitably the same comparison sug- 
gests itself in the case of the Rev. Abram Joseph 
Ryan (1839-1886), and the priest-poet, John Banister 
Tabb, whose lyric gift in quatrain form is distinctive. 
"Father" Ryan is a household name in the South, 
famed, not so largely for the influences of his eccle- 
siastical duties within the Catholic Church, as for his 
services in the Confederate Army as chaplain and for 
those songs of the South which identify his position 
so largely with the fate of the lost cause. His life 
may be compressed into a few words. Born in Vir- 
ginia, with Irish forebears, he entered the priesthood 
at the outbreak of the war, and when he returned 
home after the conflict, he filled several pulpits, chiefly 
identifying himself with St. Mary's Church in Mobile, 
Ala., where his ungainly presence became familiar on 
the street. Of a modest nature, he was not a seeker 
after renown, but was prompted wholly by a mission- 
ary spirit; he possessed a simple faith and a simple 
love for nature, and his gift of verse was the spon- 
taneous expression of deep fervor. Popular appreci- 
ation saved Father Ryan ffom himself; were he con- 
fined in estimation to religious poetry alone, some of it 
interminably long and saturated with the spirit of the 
Catholic service to such an extent as to fall from the 
sphere of originality to that of paraphrasing, there 
would be little to say of his claim to the title of 
" Laureate of the Lost Cause." In one of his pieces, 
he wrote of poets in this wise : 



350 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

They move along life's uttermost extremes, 

Unlike all other men; 
And in their spirits' depths sleep strangest dreams 

Like shadows in a glen. 



This is only half true, and, peculiarly, Ryan's quiescent 
state, where his philosophy of life flows into eccle- 
siasticism, is not his happiest ; we much prefer in him 
the spirit of the inspired warrior to that of the sancti- 
fied priest; he is more alive and his technique is 
surer when he is moved by the event rather than by 
the contemplation; for the poet of quiet becomes 
bound up in verbiage unless he has his art thoroughly 
in control, and this Father Ryan did not have. " Bet- 
ter a day of strife than a century of sleep," he wrote, 
and such a vein constitutes the chief fame of this 
poet. We cannot deny him the devotion of his calling, 
the rare sentiment of a kindly disposition, and his 
filial affection; but the impulse of the thinker was 
far in excess of the value of thought, and so we extol 
his grace rather than the vitality of his content. Only 
when lauding the Southern people and measuring the 
extent of their bravery and of their grief, when writ- 
ing *' Sentinel Songs," when perpetuating the chivalry 
of Lee, when uttering "The Prayers of the South/' 
was he at his best. 

Whatever there was of mysticism in his verse came 
from the font of the Catholic Church; Father Ryan 
was almost wholly devoid of a constructive imagina- 
I tion; and one will seek in vain for any indication 
' of a sense of humor. Indeed, the poet lived among 
scenes not constituted for laughter, and after his serv- 
ices in the army, he longed oftenest for quiet and 
aloofness. "A Land Without Ruins" is a "land 
without memories," he wrote, and he was more in com- 
munion afterwards with the " deathless dead," what- 
ever his association as priest or lecturer with the living. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 351 

Life was **the shadow of sadness/* while the rapture 
of eternal rest was "the sunshine of gladness." It 
was as though prayer had been answered when death 
found Father Ryan in retirement in a Franciscan 
monastery at Louisville, Ky., working upon a "Life 
of Christ/' 

The destiny of such a poet depends very largely 
upon associative value, upon local recollection. " The 
Sword of Robert Lee " and " The Conquered Banner " 
will outlive " Poems : Patriotic, Religious, Miscel- 
laneous," in the bulk. There was small range to 
Father Ryan's instrument, and so the lack of variety 
only accentuates the recurrence of the same subjects. 
In all probability he had read Tennyson, but with 
small effect, for the church significance of his " De 
Profundis " and the lyrical quality of his " Song 
of the River" are hardly to be compared with such 
lines as " Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep," 
or those in "The Brook." In a sense, he is entitled 
to the claim of a household poet, with all the sincerity 
but without any of the ample vision of Longfellow. 
A man so personal in his expression could not escape 
in his verse the autobiographical note; his life left 
its impress everywhere; illness swept over him and 
lent him topic for song; death deprived him of rela- 
tives and his grief found outlet in words. His Mo- 
bile parish was subject for poetry, his visit to Rome 
and Pope Pius IX. found record in like fashion — 
but above all, his mood colored his verse — a predom- 
inating sad tone which was saved from being despond- 
ent by his faith. Beyond this, Father Ryan did not 
seek to go. 

In fact, such poetry as that of Father Ryan went 
so far and no further ; it fulfilled a personal need and 
reflected a local value, betokening a local experience. 
Though human nature rises above such limitation, the 
Southern writer found it a handicap; his philosophy 



352' THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

hardly exceeded the demand of the occasion; his ob- 
servation was content with immediate surroundings. 
There was a fixity to his point of contact that forced 
him to sum up the whole world in terms of his own 
making. If he stepped outside of this, he was in 
unfamiliar atmosphere, and he showed it. No better 
illustration of this than in Mrs. Wilson's attempt 
to keep pace with the scientific development of recent 
times, and her futile efforts to oppose to the progres- 
sive stream a current almost spent, and attractive only 
as a part of evolution, of mental and spiritual develop- 
ment. 

Yet Mrs. Wilson had the critical perspective, — not 
strong enough, it is true, to overbalance her old regime 
narrowness, but sufficiently active to place her at odds 
with the new order. Such provincial outlook had 
but one large redeeming quality — a flavor which, for 
a better word, we term charm. The novelist reach- 
ing out for broader experience, for general characteri- 
zation, cannot exceed training ; in such an atmosphere, 
literature becomes *' fixed " by an accepted status of 
culture. As for the South, there was evident every- 
where a sectarian distrust of any intellectual adjust- 
ment outside the confines of custom and sanction. 
That is why the vision was narrow, however limitless 
the courtesy. The critic allowed his local pride to 
accentuate the small occurrences which were mag- 
nified because of his participation in them, and so 
we have such reminiscences as T. C. De Leon's " Beaux 
and Belles of the Sixties," with a special appeal for 
those alone familiar with the field, and more a cata- 
loguing of names than a simple recounting of the 
social life of individuals in the aggregate. The poet, 
on the other hand, kept a record of passing emotion ; 
his muse was imitative though the impulse came natu- 
rally ; he was handicapped by two phases of his work — 
there was the casual manner of his singing, his energies 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 353 

being dedicated to other duties; there was his local 
fame which imposed upon him the exercise of a poet- 
laureate. It is difficult to determine how far James 
Barron Hope (1827- 1887) would have progressed had 
he not been regarded as a special singer. 

The occasional poem, therefore, appears in duplicate 
and triplicate; in a certain sense it transplanted ora- 
tory, and Hope often was called upon to deliver metri- 
cal addresses. Timrod also celebrated in verse what 
Charleston accomplished in deed — ^the opening of a 
new theater, the dedication of a cemetery, the anniver- 
sary of an asylum — a conventional lyric expression of 
feeling. Southern poetry was hardly the deep measure 
of Southern character, but was chiefly an indication 
of response drawn from character by the moment. 
But the impulse of a warm heart is only one part of 
true poetry; the seer, the seeker, are essential to the' 
lasting work — those who within themselves, irrespec- 
tive of time and place, have "murmurs and scentS: 
of the infinite sea." Timrod's war poetry is tinctured 
with a bitterness, a defiance, very different from the 
natural freshness and sentiment of his other verse; 
his " Carolina " and " A Cry to Arms " are filled with 
hatred for the despot, with proud glory in the death 
of " the startled Huns ! " The red stream brought no 
compassion to his pen ; it scaled the heights of ballad 
defiance ; his faith was in the God of Battle. 

Unfortunately, occasional poetry is forced in its 
expression; much is furnished it which the poet can- 
not disregard; his audience expects something which 
he has to give. It differs from a voluntary desire to 
express personal emotion over an occurrence, such as 
John Reuben Thompson wrote on "Ashby." The 
Southern warrior instilled the purest emotion in the 
Southern ballad, nowhere better seen than in the lyric 
quality of Randall's " Pelham." 

These poets of the South are such casual singers 



354 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

that no critic may venture to discuss them at length; 
their tone and their excellences and their faults are 
so similar. To the majority of readers, Thompson 
(1823-1873) is remembered chiefly because of his as- 
sociation with the Literary Messenger (1847). Though 
a graduate lawyer, his career was that of the journal- 
ist, and when the magazine activity in the South re- 
ceives due consideration, it will be found that the 
Southern Field and Fireside (1859) and the New 
York Evening Post (1866) owed much to his labor. 
Thompson's life is an example of the arduous fate of 
the literary man in the South; he wrote promiscu- 
ously ; he corresponded with the London Index, which 
was the Confederate organ for England ; he traveled 
abroad, was in the employ of the Government ; worked 
in the Virginia State library ; edited various unsuccess- 
ful papers; and in many capacities served Governor 
Letcher of Virginia. If one consider this in connec- 
tion with his poor health, Thompson will embody in 
his person one of the tragedies of literary life in the 
South. He was a brilliant man who, when he died, 
passed from the immediate view of those who listened 
to him as a speaker, as a lecturer, as a journalist; the 
new generation turned to others. The range of his 
poetry stretches over two periods; he wrote with a 
close knowledge of Poe, he sang dirges on the deaths 
of Harrison and Zachary Taylor. Philip Pendleton 
Cooke was a friend, and he was able, as editor, to 
further John Esten Cooke. Poems were read from 
manuscript to the public, then they were placed in 
newspapers and lost. That was largely the fate of 
Thompson, though he nobly filled his small sphere; he 
sent one " ringing ballad " down the years, as Mrs. 
Preston said, referring to **The Death of Stuart," 
and his loyalty made him loved. 

It were indeed well to mention such service casually, 
not that it would fail "to rank the same with God," 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 355 

whatever the intensity of the effort, but in perspective 
it is only one drop in the progress of Hfe; it is 
of value simply because it is in the current. James 
Barron Hope might be dismissed with what has already 
been suggested, for his varied activities only took from 
the permanent value of his poetry which was so mo- 
mentary, so personal, and, in some respects, so imi- 
tative. 

Hope was a Virginian to the core, a student of 
William and Mary (1847), and a graduate of law, 
public responsibility being placed upon him early in 
life. It would seem that in him were epitomized some 
of the characteristics of any son of any landed pro- 
prietor. He had been in the Navy, had had an affair 
of honor, and had gained recognition as a poet under 
the nom de plume, Henry Ellen Esquire, before he 
had reached majority. As early as 1857, already 
known to the readers of The Literary Messenger, he 
published " Leoni di Monota and Other Poems '* 
whose chief claim to recognition seems to have been 
that it contained " The Charge of Balaklava," so be- 
praised by G. P. R. James, the novelist, then British 
Consul at Richmond, and so preserved because of its 
resemblance to Tennyson ; it has undoubted spirit, but 
an unpoetic balance that mingks melodrama and com- 
monplace expression with spiritual uplift. 

It was not long before his pen was engaged in 
perpetuating the occasion. 

But even Hope's metrical addresses and his sincere 
sentiments on special occasions could not disguise the 
weakness of his verse; he possessed no ability to 
sustain his figures of speech, and his lines limped with 
a conversational glibness that detracted from the po- 
etic. In a poem read before Phi Beta Kappa, in 
1858, we find him referring to Memory's elbow in a 
most corporeal fashion, while his seeming indifference 
to originality, just so he had the outlet for expres- 



356 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

sion, forced him to an imitation in no respects note- 
worthy. 

Hope's ideas were always of a high nature; but 
in his moral aims, he inevitably fell into a didactic 
strain which, beside its prose expression, became over- 
tiresome and long. The tragedy of it all lay in the 
fact that in what he wrote there was a pretty senti- 
ment which might have gained distinction had there 
been any evidence of care and discrimination. The 
real poet would not associate the night wind with 
" sudden squalls " ; he would feel the inadequacy of 
a blank verse which has neither metrical exactness nor 
color. Yet at times Hope's pure feeling overcame 
these limitations. 

In such verse as "Libera nos, O Domine," Hope's 
war spirit found an outlet ; in his " Washington Ode " 
there is typical expression of the oratorical in such 
a line as " My answer's brief, 'tis, Citizens, be- 
cause . . ." ; his verses to " The Poet-Priest Ryan," 
poor in construction, are filled with an excellent boyish 
spirit. Occasionally he would conceive some distinct 
expression, such as: 

A King once said of a Prince struck down, 
" Taller he seems in Death ! '* 

but historic truth to him was always viewed in a 
matter-of-fact manner, as when, on epitomizing the 
noble career of Lee, he exclaimed : 

Who shall blame the social order 
Which gave us men as great as these? 

The large fact about Hope was that his verse was 
devoid of imagination, and was literal in its construc- 
tion ; even in the simple delineation of Nature, his 
imitativeness and triteness of wording destroyed all 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 357 

claim to Southern richness ; he versified his story with 
much faithfulness but with little spontaneity. One 
of his very last acts was in a professional capacity 
as "Laureate," when he began his lines on Lee, for 
the monument to be started in Richmond, October 26, 
1887; h^ completed the poem a few days before his 
death on September 15; in 1881, he had, through act 
of Congress, been delegated to prepare an ode for the 
Yorktown Centennial. From all accounts Hope was 
versatile and gentle ; in music and in art he excelled ; 
his manner was full of grace, his touch that of a 
woman. Some called himi *' Sir Roger de Coverley," 
others spoke of him as " a very Chevalier Bayard." 
Certain it is that as a Southern poet he possessed all 
the excellences and all the weaknesses of his section. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SOUTHERN SCHOOL OF POETRY 

I. Lanier 

A "school" betokens some unifying principle of 
philosophy or political and social belief, some adher- 
ence to a set code of artistic principles. We have 
already intimated that the sympathy which bound to- 
gether a certain number of Southern poets during this 
period was aggravated by an isolation which was 
partly overcome by correspondence. This served to 
emphasize a certain devotion for ideals which were 
not wholly dependent upon the course of events, but 
were made manifest through a spirit of reverence for 
the beautiful. This similar mission made each poet a 
little more conscious of the technical phase of his 
work, prompted him to be more critical of what he 
read and of what he did. 

Such a school as that which contained Lanier, \ 
Hayne, Timrod, Ticknor, and Mrs. Preston was uni- 
fied, moreover, by a similar depression, born of the 
tragedy of war. Restrictions consequent upon an un- 
steady social system subjected them all to similar 
doubts, misgivings, grievings, and speculation. This 
was a " school," therefore, of mutual sympathies, of 
conscious limitations, of interest in things outside of 
the immediate horizon. Yet, of them all, Lanier was 
the only one to look afar, to trust his own individual 
mental and spiritual strength beyond the boundaries 
of accepted beliefs and of established customs. 

Because of this, we prefer to regard Lanier from 

358 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 359 

the point of view of the progressive thinker, rather 
than mesely as the poet. Judged from the spirit- 
ual development of the inner man, his repeated ques- 
tionings are indicative of a restless spirit, not strug- 
gling against expansion, but subjected to that travail 
which comes to all those who would change the for- 
mal plan of religion without altering the fundamental 
faith. Apart from his metrical surprises, his lyric 
excellences, his felicitous use of language which often 
accepted archaic form, and was tempered by a chivalric 
warmth which was second nature to him, as well 
as showing a conscious familiarity with Elizabethan 
ornateness — apart from that happy welding of thought 
with music, which is better displayed in " The Sym- 
phony " than in the Centennial " Cantata," Lanier's 
pioneer position in Southern letters is the one large, 
significant and abiding fact in his short but distinctive 
Hfe (1842-1881). 

One can easily account for his chivalric and roman- 
tic strains from the fact that on his father's side he 
was Huguenot. Believing in inherited tendencies, there 
is likewise significance in the record which tells how 
Nicholas Lanier, described as " musician, painter, en- 
graver," was attached to the patronage of James I. 
and of the two King Charleses, and wrote music for 
Jonson's masks as well as for Herrick's love songs. 
Looking carefully into the spiritual expression of 
Lanier's character, there is no doubting the influence 
exerted on him through the Scotch-Irish inheritance 
on his mother's side, — an inheritance which, in our 
casual reference to the migration of peoples, we spoke 
of as a rich vein of Puritanism in the South, under- 
estimated because, to the general mind, Puritan life 
is always associated with the severity of the Hebraic 
spirit. Yet at the basis of Lanier's poems is that 
unshakable confidence in God, a belief in every ex- 
action to be placed upon the soul, which always 



36o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

prompted his thought, even In the midst of question- 
ings raised by his interest in physical science. 

No one has adequately traced the social life of 
America, which varies in detail from State to State; 
the chief value of the local writers, as we have seen 
in the cases of Baldwin and Longstreet, resides in the 
side-light which they help to throw upon the people 
of that time. When Lanier went to Oglethorpe Col- 
lege, after a boyhood residence in Macon, he was 
already steeped in the Presbyterianism of Middle 
Georgia, and though he had participated in what Le 
Conte, one of the distinctive men of science in the 
South, described as " the boundless hospitality of those 
times," he in no sense showed any apparent inclina- 
tion for a Bohemian existence. He went to college, 
however, with certain tastes already manifest — his love 
of nature, his alertness in such study as Macon schools 
afforded, his inborn attraction toward music, which 
at the early age of seven found satisfaction in a home- 
made reed flute, his orchestral ambition, and his read- 
ing tastes which thus early foreshadowed, in his love 
for the romances of Froissart, his later chivalric books 
for boys. 

There followed the days at college under the in- 
spiration of James Woodrow, whose championship of 
physical science investigations made deep impress 
upon Lanier's mind, and undoubtedly afforded him a 
foundation for his later theories regarding verse and 
music. But here became evident the characteristic 
note of Lanier's work — his seriousness, his almost 
passionate devotion to study, and his preference for 
what one of his class-mates described as "the quaint 
and curious." Lanier did not abandon the healthy 
exuberance of the college student, but through his 
natural bent for the arts and through his undisguised 
satisfaction in a book, he was regarded by his asso- 
ciates as an exception in their midst. Indeed, through 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 361 

the force of his personaHty, — quiet, earnest, quick — 
he developed, at the very beginning, the power of im- 
parting his appreciation, his joy, his knowledge, to 
others. Quite remarkable it was in the South to find 
a son with such variety of taste and such flexibility 
of mind — to sweep the range of literature from early 
Saxon days; to take in, under the initial guidance of 
Carlyle, and in later intercourse with Bayard Taylor, 
the activity of German thought. 

It was Lanier's discernment which impresses the 
critic as being outside the general trend of Southern 
literature; his ability to judge impartially, in the light 
of universal standards, and with no partisan bitterness. 
Yet Lanier was steeped in the atmosphere of the 
South; this becomes very evident in "Tiger Lilies" 
and certainly makes of " Florida," done as a piece of 
hack work, something more than a guide book for 
commercial exploitation. Innately, Lanier was the 
poet, whatever the task set him ; through the period of 
unsettled vocation, he was constantly testing the two 
vital sparks in his genius — music and verse writing, — 
but likewise, his intellectual ambition was making 
itself felt in the college, where he served as tutor im- 
mediately after graduation. It was a period of self- 
questioning, as his note-books will show; of seeking 
beyond his environment, in fact, beyond the limits of 
American education to what German universities 
might afford. This looking forward added weight 
and significance to the figure of Lanier, the scholar, 
who, if facts are carefully examined, will be found to 
have been one of the first examples of the university 
investigator in the modern and American sense. 

In what he did, Lanier could hardly be accused 
of contenting himself with dreams ; he was as practical 
in his sphere of activity as conditions would allow; 
he made the best use of what was close at hand, 
and it was fortunate that his horizon stretched beyond 



362' THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the Mason and Dixon line, for contact with the out- 
side world added to his stature. Thus filled with the 
desires of youth, Lanier suddenly found himself in 
the midst of war ; it came upon him with a furor which 
is partly described in " Tiger Lilies.'^ He entered 
the lists, as others did, imbued with the spirit of right- 
eousness, and it was only after the first ardor of the 
Crusader had passed away, when the enormity of the 
slave question began to dawn upon him, when war 
began to look its worst with its "miscellaneous mass 
of poverty, starvation, recklessness, and ruin," that he 
was prompted, with his accustomed inclination, to 
weigh cause and effect, to examine into logical reasons. 
This contemplation came after the conflict, when the 
South most needed wisdom to point a way through the 
dark clouds of Reconstruction. The immediate effect 
of war upon Lanier, however, was to warm his chivalric 
nature to action, and to set his imagination building 
a Confederacy of lasting renown. Oglethorpe College 
became a barrack, and the Macon Volunteers had their 
numbers swelled. 

Lanier's war record is one of hardship rather than 
of important conflict; it graded from initial novelty 
to ague and picket duty. The excitement of Richmond 
and Malvern Hill was not sufficient for the poet, who 
carried with him the flute now so closely identified with 
his name; he and his brother were therefore trans- 
ferred to the signal service. Curious it is to note that 
even war could not suppress the student who, finding 
himself at Petersburg, frequented the city library; nor 
could the exactions of his new service keep his flute 
silent in camp, for he often went serenading " with 
one general, six captains, and one lieutenant." 

Thus, in the midst of scout duty, the romance of 
life came to Lanier in the shape of Miss Mary Day, 
whom he was soon to marry ; love and excitement were 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 363 

the proper food, and the troubadour spirit filled him 
with daring, which resulted in exactions on his physi- 
cal strength. He and his brother moved through the 
country, leaving behind memories of music and gentle 
manners, and given any time of quiet, Lanier's mind 
would follow in new paths of literature. It is even 
told how the enemy captured his small volume of the 
poets, and a German glossary, and " Aurora Leigh " ; 
war could not affright his intellect, tradition could 
not stem the strong tide of his inclination. There is 
not a moment in Lanier's life when his nature was not 
unfolding to the realization of greater things. Even 
when service as signal officer on a blockade-runner 
led to capture and four months' imprisonment, he took 
care to fix indelibly upon his mind the details of con- 
ditions, afterwards described in '* Tiger LiHes"; and 
according to his associate in prison, none other than 
Mr. John B. Tabb, the ordeal of confinement revealed 
the Galahad qualities of his nature. He came from 
the struggle, emaciated and weak, with a record for 
bravery in personal service. 

It was not easy for a man of Lanier's temperament 
to settle down to a mundane struggle with conditions. 
There were graver problems to consider after the 
war than the practice of art, and though he might 
write about it, and ponder over it, and read about 
it, Lanier was part of a life which was readjusting in 
the light of new problems — a land riven and seared, 
where sustenance was the uppermost thought in the 
minds of those who returned home and to the fields, 
stunned and physically weakened by insufficient food 
and clothing. 

First as tutor in Macon, then as hotel clerk in 
Montgomery, he faced the poverty before him. Con- 
sumption had killed his mother just when he himself 
was in the throes of illness, and now (1866), writing 



364 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

North, his active brain employed in the Exchange 
Hotel began to rebel against the monotony and stag- 
nation of the town. His thoughts turned North. 

He was simply subjected to the poverty which held 
the whole South in vise-like grip, and beneath which 
the spirits of Hayne and Timrod bent. The invader 
had not respected any evidences of tradition, and libra- 
ries had been sacrificed in a night. The Southerners 
had been used to a system institutionally wrong, but 
there was no guarantee that the new system would 
do more than add to their responsibility, without adding 
to their resources. Lanier watched carefully, and, by 
1867, saw that, in spite of the ripe conditions for in- 
jury of all sorts within the South itself, there was 
calmness of Southern temperament, born of a spirit 
in the people which rose above law and above the gall- 
ing restraint of military order. 

Lanier was not the sort to brood; events conduced 
to show that with many of his associates he was intent 
on working, and when he was not at the hotel, he was 
playing the pipe organ at the Presbyterian Church, 
further developing that passion for music which act- 
uated his whole life. Sidney and Clifford were both 
writing in the interim, and planning to go North for 
a literary market. 

Separate events in Lanier's progress belong to his 
biography which Professor Mims has adequately 
written. It is easy, when a man's life is accomplished, 
to discard all but those events which best vivify the 
golden strand of purpose known as his mission. The 
provincialism of the South stands out in proportion 
to the mental hunger of the Southerner. With 
Lanier's first trip to New York, in 1867, began his 
literary career, which he was not to adopt officially 
until 1873 — ^ period of three years intervening, in 
which time he became a husband, a lawyer, and a 
traveler, served his term in the Peabody Orchestra, 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 365 

and began his struggle with physical weakness which 
finally ended in his death. 

When Lanier's mind came in touch with brisk life, 
he rapidly evinced his natural bent of the student. 
Even when " Tiger Lilies," which he had brought with 
him, was printed, the critics found concentrated in 
the book those tendencies which afterwards, in sepa- 
rate manner, developed a distinctive phase of his art. 
They saw in it the scholar, the poet, the antique quaint- 
ness — which sounds artificial, separated from the en- 
thusiasm which Lanier always felt for chivalric litera- 
ture, — and the philosophy which was ever a queer 
mixture of physics and metaphysics. 

We will not analyze Lanier, in order to measure how 
far he caught the atmosphere of Southern life, thought 
and environment; he was not a novelist any more than 
Longfellow, but as Mims says, it were safe to give 
to " Tiger Lilies " the same emphasis we bestow upon 
" Hyperion." It is autobiographical, as the first works 
of the creative artist always are ; it is descriptive, with 
an admixture of the literal and the imaginative; it 
is, from its local point of view, observant of those 
strains of tongue and manner which later, in the stu- 
dent, developed such intense interest in Anglo-Saxon, 
and in the speech of the Elizabethans. 

It must have been difficult for Lanier to decline 
all proposals of traveling to Germany, as he most de- 
sired to do, but though he was in spirit able to rise 
above the throes of Reconstruction, he was in every 
way affected by the paralyzed state of affairs. He 
was teaching during this dire period, and trying to 
instill seeds of knowledge in soil not prepared for it. 
Perhaps, in Prattville, he detected a rude speech which 
sounded like music to his ear ; there are even now, in 
Tennessee and in North Carolina, men of uncouth 
living, with a speech so quaint as to be another lan- 
guage. Lanier could never discard from his style the 



366 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

odd and unusual expression, which Hayne at this time 
said would have been thoroughly artificial, had it not 
been second nature. 

The dark pressure of want finds reflection in some 
of Lanier's poetry; he sang of languishing trade and 
dull work with as much fervor as he was later to 
sound the warning, when exacting trade threatened his 
temple of art. But now he saw clearly the thought- 
less imposition of law, and he realized the necessity 
for a great man, one " tall enough to see over the 
whole country," for the time had come when "the 
horizon of cleverness is too limited." Thus, despair- 
ing of any hope of philosophical practice outside and 
around him, Lanier himself applied his mind to 
thoughts that afterwards found their way into " Ret- 
rospects and Prospects," and it must be said that this 
phase of his philosophical taste was clearer than it 
afterwards became in some of his longer and later 
poems. The dark days of 1868 found Lanier in 
Prattville, studying German and Lucretius, writing 
an occasional poem, philosophizing, and facing the 
responsibilities of married life. 

Lanier's constructive imagination was directed to- 
ward critical work; his survey of "Nature-Meta- 
phors " during these days illustrates a double tendency 
found in his poetry, to speculate abstractly and too 
generally — as when he defined the nature-metaphor as 
a figure " in which soul gives life to matter, and matter 
gives Antsean solidity to soul," — and to build impres- 
sions by a comparison which revealed a keen literary 
appreciation, as when he wrote that " Ancient thought 
was a huge genie; modern thought is a genie or a 
lightsome Ariel at will." This method, sometimes 
too inclusive to be satisfactorily explained, flashes 
through " Shakspere and his Forerunners," adding 
to its agreeableness without adding to its weight. 

It was in 1868 that Lanier followed the inevitable 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 367 

path for Southerners, that is, the law. He was con- 
scientious and faithful in his study and in the prepara- 
tion of his " abstracts," showing that untiring appli- 
cation which later, when he went to Johns Hopkins, 
served him in such excellent stead. Perhaps it was 
this regularity of work that permitted him to take 
stock of Southern conditions; perhaps it was the un- 
erring law of his nature that brought him with each 
year nearer the realization of what the New South 
was to be. This much we do know, that, in 1870, 
while delivering a memorial address in Macon, he 
pleaded for tranquillity which would make the South 
great in misfortune. The man who, in the midst of 
Reconstruction, could unceasingly cry that the South- 
erners had " risen immeasurably above all vengeance " 
was one who had a far vision. 

It is well for us to ponder the heroic fortitude of 
these men. Lanier was sustained by the encourage- 
ment of Hayne, whom the war had left destitute, and 
with whom a literary correspondence was begun; in 
this way, Hayne was able to judge of Lanier's un- 
feigned, love for antiquarian lore; he was able to see 
how zealously Lanier followed contemporary work, 
showing enthusiasm for Browning, comparing the in- 
tricacies of his verse with the coils of a lasso being 
flung unerringly. Lanier's letters contained prose 
chips of poetry, as complete in themselves as his 
" Poem Outlines," a slender volume consisting of frag- 
ments of poetic thought. He had quick perception. 

Ill-health now turned Lanier into something of a 
wanderer, spending summers in Georgia, Virginia 
and Tennessee ; wherever he found himself, his letters 
revealed how quickly his natural thirst for beauty 
drew satisfaction from the best around him ; his pure 
enjoyment of nature resulted in some of his most 
vivid expressions in prose. What has to be admired 
most about this pale, sensitive man was his alive- 



368 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

ness to all activity, whether it be the Wall Street roar, 
or the singing- of Nilsson, or the music of Wagner. 
And as further evidence of his wonderful perception, 
we find him, in 1870, enraptured with the music of 
Wagner, not only because of the intellectual stimula- 
tion in it, but because through it he was able to de- 
termine the future position and scope of the orches- 
tra. Again we are impressed with the pioneer char- 
acter of the man's mind. 

These flashes from the anvil of genius portended 
greater things ; with a pen which was facile and vivid, 
he could send away descriptions of concerts which 
throbbed with the essence of his own being, and then, 
apart from the rapture which oftentimes swept over 
him and left him weak, he could pen a description of 
San Antonio which was full of social value. In a 
letter, dated from that city in 1873, ^ J^^^ marked 
by monetary depression in the South, Lanier deter- 
mined finally on the artist's life; amidst a set of Ger- 
man musicians, he found the true scope for his desire. 
In those days, not only did his flute whisper to him, 
but he also composed pieces for himself, compositions 
wherein the poet in him used musical notes. In his 
own person, he was trying to reconcile his future 
theory of the science of verse. 

Were one to go carefully through the literary re- 
mains of Sidney Lanier, there would be clearly marked 
distinct periods in the development of his short life. 
With his final determination to follow art — for he 
had written eloquently to his father, telling of his con- 
viction that art was his mission — there begins a less 
sectional period of his life, for though he was always 
to possess the warmth of sentiment and the courtesy 
of manner characterizing Southern civilization, both 
as a student and as a musician he was hereafter to 
be universally interested in the development of the 
art movement. Sociologically, he was to be influenced 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 369 

by historical inheritance ; spiritually, he was to exhibit 
evidences of a certain formal training; but his cath- 
olicity of appreciation soon gave him a distinctive repu- 
tation in the country. 

** The only reality in the v^orld " is how Lanier de- 
fined music. When he settled in Baltimore, as flutist 
in the Peabody Orchestra, he not only was a composer, 
but had gained some distinction as an individual player. 
In his appreciation of music, his pleasure was so pain- 
ful as to impair his nervous control; yet his joy was 
mingled with a certain humor, as when he found him- 
self among the Germans in San Antonio, or when he 
actually found himself a salaried member of the or- 
chestra. There was no doubting his musical genius; 
everyone who heard his flute came under the spell; 
music fired his imagination; the orchestra lived, 
breathed, was human in his eyes. Instead of putting 
the thoughts into words, his pleasure prompted him to 
song. 

But he was doing more ; he was learning. Lanier's 
modesty was evident through his assiduous investiga- 
tion. He was not content with the flute as a flute, 
or with music as mere music ; he needs must know of 
the technique beneath. It was not sufficient that a 
piece appealed to him ; he must know wherein it ap- 
pealed. So that we obtain the musical critic, the musi- 
cal physicist, and the musical historian. With all the 
beauty of a woman in his nature, he had also the 
"large conception of a man '' ; the world between Cho- 
pin and Beethoven was his; he understood lyricism, 
he was no stranger to dynamic and primitive force. 

Lanier was not simply the musician in his musical 
career ; however much he was inclined to lave his soul 
in harmony, he possessed a commanding knowledge 
of his subject, and was the constructive thinker. It was 
not enough that, as one enthralled, he could play upon 
his flute, but he had to invent an instrument of his 



3/0 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

own; it was not enough that he should be an integral 
part of the orchestra in Baltimore, but he had to 
analyze the component structure of the organism. This 
man, naturally given to the emotional and to the artis- 
tic, was growing in intellectual power and in social 
view. He reached out toward the masses of people 
with a plan to educate them musically, to travel 
through the country training them in the fine relation- 
ships in music. 

Not alone content with this scheme of imparting 
his well-digested views to others, Lanier's attention 
was now concerned with the recent discoveries of 
Helmholtz. It is significant to bear in mind this poet's 
thoroughness in dealing with science, whether his in- 
vestigations be utilized in such a poem as " The Bee " 
or in such a lengthy theory as " The Science of Eng- 
lish Verse." There was as much joy to him in the 
fact that his observation of the vibration of strings 
had revealed some explanation of "the difference of 
timbre between stringed instruments and wind," as 
there was in his discovery of some Anglo-Saxon 
beauties. 

No critic could accuse Lanier of a lack of thorough- 
ness ; the only drawback to his entire poise as a critic 
was the very natural fact that, as a musician, he 
showed certain tastes which were not founded on 
analysis, but on preference. He composed, as we have 
said, but the history of American music will not be 
entitled to emphasize his name. He wrote much on 
the orchestra and on individual musicians, and, in a 
day when Wagner was far from being understood 
or accepted, he was a devout follower, and prepared a 
translation of the " Rheingold." 

His observation passed into subtle distinction, il- 
lustrating his tendency to philosophize ; he would not 
separate art from thought, he would not accept sound 
as of any value save as it symbolized an idea and 
created an emotion. As a Southerner, swayed by 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 371 

the force of the far horizon, this passage in " From 
Bacon to Beethoven," is illuminating: 

"From the negro swaying to and fro with the 
weird rhythms of ' Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,' from 
the Georgia Cracker yelling the * Old Ship of Zion ' 
to the heavens through the logs of the piney woods 
church, to the intense devotee rapt away into the 
Infinite upon a mass of Palestrino, there comes but 
one testimony to the substantial efficacy of music, in 
this matter of helping the emotion of man across the 
immensity of the known into the boundaries of the 
unknown." 

Hence, as a musician in Baltimore, and always 
thereafter, Lanier's theories and his appreciations were 
not far removed from his times ; he was following his 
own statement that "the art of any age will be com- 
plementary to the thought of that age." His belief in 
the expressive value of music sometimes led him astray, 
but that did not detract in the least from his right- 
ful position regarding music as a moral agent, or from 
his sound prophecies as to the music of the future. 
If the American musician would know who first had 
faith in his potentialities, let him turn to Lanier; let 
him read the analytic opinion in such extracts as are to 
be found on " The Physics of Music," and then turn 
to his discernment as seen in "The Orchestra of To- 
day." He was the scientist as well as the poet, and 
where the musician in him ended, the poet began, un- 
less we wish to claim that the two were one. As 
though writing of his own feeling, he once said : " As 
music takes up the thread which language drops, 
so it is where Shakespeare ends that Beethoven be- 
gins." 

Lanier was creative in his musical appreciation; it 
was his imagination which raised programme music 
to the position it deserves when it is selected with 
discrimination. The quality of that imagination, 
throbbing as well with rich emotion, is best seen in his 



Zy2 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

letter describing the ** Hunt of Henry IV./' where ro- 
mance, full reality, and picturesque expression came 
close upon each other. Quite as remarkable is his anal- 
ysis of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, where na- 
ture, and passion, and humanity all enter into the mu- 
sician's expression of "the awful physical facts of 
birth and death." 

Thus hastily, we reach the conclusion that it was 
Lanier's full knowledge of music which prevented him 
from being a composer ; he was much more ambitious 
to develop the love of music through the country, and 
as early as 1867 he was strongly advocating the offi- 
cial recognition of a course of music in our American 
colleges. Indeed, if not by appointment, at least by 
adoption, Lanier was the first real professor of the 
science of music in this country. He had a literary per- 
spective of his subject, as well as having reached an 
unshakable belief in the philosophic position of music 
in the world of God, wherein it would be " the church 
of the future," and melody would seek to solve the 
mystery of the unknown. Such was Lanier, the mu- 
sician. 

The poet's development, rather than the mere facts 
of his life, forms a very tempting subject for close and 
thorough analysis. Though he was so deeply en- 
grossed in music and in the life of Baltimore, he was 
as well concerned with poetry and with the life of 
the South. In the summer of 1874, he combined his 
feeling for both in " Corn," a more natural expression 
of his recent visit South than " Florida," which was a 
commission. This poem may be regarded as Lanier's 
entrance into literature as a profession; it represented 
his extension of fame, for it attracted considerable 
comment after its publication in Lippincotfs Magazine 
for February, 1875. 

In many respects, " Corn " is representative of 
Lanier's characteristics as a poet; in its metrical ar- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 373 

rangement, and in its tendency to over-extend its stated 
ment and application, it is much akin to "The Sym- 
phony"; even the flow of its Hnes into short expres- 
sions of sound and color is thus early natural with \ 
him, as well as his cumulative rhyme vagaries whose i 
ease alone is measure of their effectiveness. The j 
luxuriance of scene is striking, and the expression of it 
apt without being inevitable. Lanier's use of com- 
pounds, his tendency to over-personification, his pecu- 
liar use of the adjective, are all to be found in this / 
poem. We cannot say that, like Keats' *' Ode to Au- 
tumn," "Corn" is majestically rich in color; his ex- 
pression of Southern surroundings throbbed with those 
delicacies which lent to his observation what music 
had accustomed him to hear; heart-beats, tremblings, 
the hum of song, the echo of kisses, fragmentary 
whispers, under-talks, inarticulate tone — these were 
his nature impressions. This sifting of beauty upon 
his soul in such wise betokened the musician ; it never 
decreased and was as strong in 1880, when " Sunrise " 
was written, as in 1875. 

" Corn " abounds in the chivalric, and it contains 
the lyrical grace of " Rose Morals " ; but it likewise has 
the social breadth of view, later to be seen in Lanier's 
critical comments on the New South, when he dis- 
cussed the future value of the small farm; it has 
clearly defined his contempt for barter, so thoroughly 
emphasized in " The Symphony." In his thought he 
was inclined to give the same latitude to which music 
accustomed him; that is why his philosophy is gen- 
eralized, and his deep religious convictions are ex- 
pressed in picturesque liberality. In its measure of 
reaction against denominational restriction, Lanier's 
spiritual side is most interesting; it shows a gradual 
departure from the conventional formalism of his early 
years. We find expression of this broadening in " The 
Marshes of Glynn"; his human view of Christianity 



374 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

fills the exquisite " Ballad of Trees and the Master/' 
and mounts to the very highest declaration of broad 
faith in "The Crystal." Here, in this latter poem, 
we have the cosmopolitan taste of Lanier, which flows 
so readily into intense critical expression, the mind 
being so acute for every shade of appreciation that 
one has difficulty in fully digesting the acumen of the 
thought. 

Professor Charles W. Kent has given some space 
to an analysis of Lanier, the poet. In his attitude to- 
ward nature, he was not as definite or as scientific as 
Tennyson in such verse as " Flower in the crannied 
wall" or "The Higher Pantheism," nor can one say 
that he ever approached his views on life as know- 
ingly as Tennyson did in such a poem as " De Profun- 
dis." A close view of Lanier's work would lead us 
to infer that, after his intellect had questioned some 
of the old tenets of faith and forced him to relinquish 
them, it was instinct, based upon fundamental qualities 
of character, that gave him a satisfactory hold upon 
God and Nature. 

Now, this love of Lanier, abounding in all his poems, 
resulted in two essential strains throughout his work ; 
these were the eternal love in which lies the explana- 
tion of all mystery, and the special love in which 
abides the remedy for all social ills. Bound up in 
the music motive of "The Symphony," we find the 
pulsing of these strings, and even in the fullness of 
his melody, he gives to music the highest of provinces 
— defining it as "Love in search of a word." Here 
we may note the ecstatic lyricism of Lanier, of which 
unfortunately he often lost control. 

The appellation of the " White Christ " is pecu- 
liarly fit for Lanier; but so ingrained was the ethical 
in his nature that he often willingly sacrificed the 
poetic for its sake. This was a fault which reacted 
in another direction, destroying the unity of his longer 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 375 

poems. " The Psalm of the West " is marred by the 
distinct breaks in its imagery and in its structural 
plan; for the song is weakened in the narrative, and 
the philosophy is embedded in a prolix use of personi- 
fication. Yet at times, Lanier was most successful 
in the dramatic ; in this very "-Psalm of the West " 
he writes a series of sonnets which are pictorially 
distinctive and intensively passionate. But never 
was Lanier able to escape a tendency to experiment, 
doubling up on his thought even as he did in his 
rhyme, and sometimes erring on the side of music, as 
Whitman erred on the side of prose. 

In Lanier's poetry, critics have found his ex- 
pression too lyrical for his thought; that is why his 
simple song is sweetest. They have also felt that in 
poetry he was most limited in his range of contempla- 
tion. Unlike Tennyson, he was not brought into 
a definite current of scientific thought; he either did 
not have the opportunity, or his natural reticence 
made him avoid the occasion, to submit the large ques- 
tions of life to others for argument. He thought 
everything out for himself, drawing his own lines 
of artistic and moral beauty, yet drawing them after 
close reading of a surprising extent. Though song 
came naturally, Lanier took the poef s province far 
from easily; his verse is full of artificial didacticism, 
which, though pure — in that the truth it contained was 
the truth of his own belief — showed him ever aware of 
the poet's mission, which he thus defines in "The 
Bee": 

He beareth starry stuff about his wings 
To pollen thee and sting thee fertile. . . . 

There was much nobility of expression in Lanier, 
much melody, but hardly strength ; there was too much 
grace and gentle courtesy ever to be rugged and primi- 



376 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tive ; on the other hand, he was often crude because of 
the ardor with which theory blinded the defects of prac- 
tice. Had he not been so intent on the music and 
physics of verse, his workmanship might have been 
more perfect. But Lanier was dead at an early age, 
and his removal only emphasized the potential develop- 
ment which might have produced a figure as large 
as Lowell, even if not as great a poet as Keats. 
Lanier gains position only when his verse, which is 
beautiful, liquid, vocally distinctive, and sometimes 
noble, is viewed in the light of the scholar. His 
intellectual aliveness places him far beyond the posi- 
tion of Timrod and Hayne. 

In his book on " The English Novel,*' Lanier wrote 
of Whitman's democracy as having " no provision for 
rich or small, or puny, or plain-featured," and as rep- 
resenting "really the worst kind of aristocracy, being 
an aristocracy of nature's favorites in the matter of 
muscle." This opinion was uttered from the depths 
of Lanier's gentle nature, but, on the other hand, he 
did not shrink from the situation before him; he was 
one of the first singers against the cruelties of an in- 
dustrialism which was but then beginning to grip the 
country. " The Symphony " is full of the motive. 

Through the efforts of Bayard Taylor, Lanier was 
asked by the Centennial Commission to write the poem 
which Dudley Buck was to set to music, and which 
Theodore Thomas' orchestra was to play. It was an 
excellent opportunity, and one which might have fallen 
to the lot of Edmund Clarence Stedman, had he not 
been in South America at the time. Taylor had large 
faith in Lanier's ability, although correspondence be- 
tween the two shows that he deprecated the over- 
emphasis placed by Lanier on music as a component 
part of poetry. But this interchange of critical com- 
ment indicates how far Lanier had risen above that 
Southern conservatism and sensitiveness which de- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 377 

prived Southern letters o£ any critical corrective. 
Lanier approached the task in the spirit of consecra- 
tion, but, on the other hand, he was musician enough 
to plan for all difficulties which might present them- 
selves to Buck. One cannot help but feel that the 
whole movement of the cantata was conceived, as far 
as Lanier was concerned, from the standpoint of 
orchestration; the annotated musical directions for the 
whole motive somehow forestall his written desire 
that the completed work should be " as simple and as 
candid as a melody of Beethoven's." 

An occasional piece of such public expectancy was 
almost certain of extended criticism, and Lanier found 
himself the center of an unfavorable storm. As a 
work of art, the poem was much too condensed to 
have a large appeal; it was rather an expression 
of Lanier's personal feeling than a broad measure of 
national patriotism. It was a poet's poem, but a poet 
of Lanier's temper rather than of Whitman's, a pic- 
turesque rather than a vigorous personification of a 
nation's aspiration, in which one feels the careful 
valuation of vowel and consonant sounds for tonal 
effects. The greatest reach in the poem is the angel's 
prophecy, which is a simple statement of Lanier's own 
political faith, and it must be remembered that this 
was only a short while after the Civil War. 

Lanier did not fail in his conception of democracy; 
he simply would not regard it grossly, he would not 
accept it as in any way primitive, or as uncouth, like 
Whitman's "beast-man." Again turning to "The 
English Novel," we find him answering Whitman in 
this manner, making a superman without having read 
Nietzsche : " My democrat, the democrat whom I con- 
template with pleasure, the democrat who is to write 
or to read the poetry of the future, may have a mere 
thread of his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to 
handle hell ... his height shall be the height 



378 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of great resolution, and love and faith and beauty 
and knowledge and subtle meditation; his head shall 
be forever among the stars." Thus spake this de- 
scendant of Huguenots, this Cavalier of the South, 
this Arthur of the Tennyson Idylls, who, summing 
up the Civil War in his " Psalm of the West," con- 
ceived it as a conflict between the heart-strong South 
and the head-strong North. This long poem of his 
is another illustration of how much more modern was 
Lanier's mental conception than his artistic expression. 
The times were not propitious for broad thinking. 
As Mims excellently indicates : " In Lanier's ' Psalm 
of the West ' we have a Southerner chanting the glory 
of freedom, without any chance of having the slavery 
of a race to make the boast a paradox." 

A small volume of Lanier's, issued in 1876, bears a 
dedication to Charlotte Cushman ; their friendship had 
begun through her admiration for " Corn," and their 
sympathy was further cemented through a similar de- 
votion to art and a similar dread disease. With his 
unusual warmth, Lanier reveled in her friendship, and 
his letters show his depth of admiration, and the naive 
manner in which he took his friends into his confi- 
dence. Miss Cushman's companion and biographer. 
Miss Stebbins, was likewise one of his correspondents, 
and through her brother, who was on the board of 
trustees of the New York College of Music, Lanier 
once hoped for an appointment as Professor of the 
Physics of Music. 

Already, in the summer of 1875, his work was inter- 
rupted by hemorrhages, but his constitution was suffi- 
ciently strong for him to be able to go to Boston in 
the fall, where he visited Miss Cushman, and met 
Lowell and Longfellow. That trip North meant much 
to Lanier, holding for him further evidences of Tay- 
lor's friendship, and creating for him pleasant memo- 
ries of hours spent at the Century Club. A series of 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 379 

unfortunate circumstances deprived him of the task 
of becoming Miss Cushman's biographer at the time 
of her death in 1876, but he himself was snatched 
from death soon after, by hasty retreat to Florida, 
from which place he wrote in a characteristically 
cheerful vein to his friends, especially Taylor. To 
the latter he was picturesque in wording, and acute in 
understanding; spontaneous glimpses of his own true 
worth are to be had in these letters, for example, when 
he confessed that he was never able to stay angry 
in his life. His excellence as a writer for children is 
partly explained by such a passage as this, descriptive 
of his family: "Nothing could be more keen, more 
fresh . . . than the meeting together of their 
little immense loves with the juicy selfishness and hon- 
est animalisms of the dear young cubs.'* 

Thus, by 1877, Lanier was fairly established as a 
poet — earnest, modest, ambiticrus, self-critical, and ex- 
acting. But though his work was sufficient to eke out 
a small livelihood, he was still anxious for some fixed 
work, such as a professorship, a librarianship, or even 
a governmental post at Washington. His health was 
so very poor that friends tried to have him appointed 
to a consulship in the south of France, but to no avail. 
Here was a period which Lanier's biographer rightly 
emphasized as the lowest ebb in his career. But noth- 
ing daunted him, and so the poet moved with his fam- 
ily to Baltimore in the fall of 1877, where he was 
better able to perfect himself in Old and Middle Eng- 
lish literature, using the Peabody Library. This ref- 
erence collection in a way was a forerunner of Johns 
Hopkins University (founded in 1876), and thus 
Lanier represented the first flower of its culture. As 
a student, he was insatiable and untiring, perfectly 
content to let the world slip by, with alternate devo- 
tion to his flute and to his books. 

He was not a student in any niggardly fashion; 



38o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

it was characteristic of Lanier that what he imbibed 
had to be shared with others; that is why he gave 
private lectures on Elizabethan poetry, and then, in 
the fall of 1878, he began his Shakespeare lectures to 
women at the Peabody Institute, which are now avail- 
able in the sumptuous volumes, " Shakspere and His 
Forerunners." Lanier's generosity of spirit made 
him a prophet ; intent always on sharing, he outlined 
to his friend, Gibson Peacock, a system of lectures 
for all the large cities of the Union which, thus early, 
foreshadowed the public lectures now so widely given, 
and the university extension work which bids fair in 
the North to have such excellent results. 

In his scheme, which was fully outlined, Lanier 
was catholic in his interest ; he did not sacrifice science 
or art in his devotion to literature. But in his Shake- 
speare course his plan was to have others give separate 
lectures on topics of closely connected interests. Col. 
Richard Malcolm Johnston, for instance, was to have 
discussed Early English Comedy. 

The outcome of this extensive scheme was Lanier's 
own individual lectures, and as we have said, these 
form the substance for his " Shakspere and His 
Forerunners." Had the poet been alive when these 
volumes were published, he would have pruned from 
them all that colloquial familiarity and that feminine 
condescension which mar the complete effectiveness 
of his scholarship. In reading these lectures, one 
should bear in mind the lack of editorial supervision, 
which, while detracting from the effectiveness of the 
style, does not in any way deprive the book of its 
intrinsic value and of its personal significance. 

" Shakspere and His Forerunners " is an excellent 
example of Lanier's faithfulness as a student, of the 
ease with which he absorbed the atmosphere of old 
material, made still more easy by an enthusiasm which 
often spoiled his perspective and his proportion. He 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 381 

was clearly a sympathetic reader of romance lore, the 
weak spot in his critical armor being his responsive 
heart. One must not estimate him rigorously, how- 
ever, for it must be remembered that he strove to be 
popular, and by their very nature Anglo-Saxon and 
phonetics are not generally studied. Lanier skillfully 
mingled human color with artistic judgment, and his 
audiences must have sat surprised by the ease with 
which he approached topics difficult of explanation. 
His range of comparative literature was not unlike 
Lowell's, though he did not possess the systematized 
scholarship of the latter; but what he did have was 
charm and personal magnetism, and the gift of com- 
municating enthusiasm. 

In their incipiency, we find here the beginning of 
his " Science of English Verse," his treatise on " The 
English Novel," and scattered throughout the pages 
varied tastes, which stamp the man rather than the 
student. His reading was of wide extent and his 
preparation deep; had the book been subjected to his 
own final supervision, we might have had in these 
volumes a popular treatment, scientifically, philologic- 
ally, and comparatively as interesting as Huxley's 
treatment of Darwin. Lanier's point of view was 
somewhat the reverse of the extreme scholar, who 
only weighs evidence and has no constructive imagina- 
tion. In his introduction, he claimed that instead of 
editing an old author because he loved him, he grew 
to love the old author because he had edited him ; al- 
ways the heart dominated over the head with Lanier. 

The success of his attempt at the Peabody Institute 
led to his appointment as Lecturer in English Liter- 
ature at the Johns Hopkins University, whose head, 
President Oilman, v^as the poet's close friend and a 
firm believer in his future. As early as 1876, there 
was an effort made to connect Lanier with the univer- 
sity, but it was not till February, 1879, that he was 



382 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

finally installed as a member of the faculty which was 
striving in pioneer spirit to establish a system of grad- 
uate research, unknown in the American college. 

Once appointed, Lanier threw himself heart and soul 
into the work. The university attracted to it the 
cream of the country's and England's scholarship — 
Kelvin, Bryce, Lowell, Child, Norton, and others. 
Lanier availed himself of his associations; the Greek 
professor, Gildersleeve, was consulted during the prep- 
aration of the " Science of English Verse," and even 
his Anglo-Saxon knowledge was put to the test of out- 
side scrutiny. This at once shows Lanier's modesty 
and his care, as well as his personal relations with 
scholars whose services he could thus claim. Lanier 
was not only the appreciator, but the original research 
worker. 

This originality resulted in his proposing scheme 
after scheme which, while not at the moment practica- 
ble, were clear indications of Lanier's significant view 
of the future of university work, wherein, let it be 
noted as of prime importance, his efforts were to keep 
English literature from that isolation into which un- 
fortunately it has at present fallen. This position of 
his was taken thirty years ago! 

Let us examine a few dates to show the untiring 
energy of this frail singer of the South. When his 
life was almost at its ebb, he put his shoulder to the 
task with gentle bravery and with the Crusader's for- 
titude. In 1878, he produced " The Boy's Froissart " ; 
in 1880, "The Boy's King Arthur"; in 1881, "The 
Boy's Mabinogion " ; while " The Boy's Percy " came 
posthumously in 1882. The " Science of English 
Verse" appeared in 1880, and his lectures on "The 
English Novel " (published in 1883) were delivered in 
the midst of the final ravages of consumption. Even 
in June, 1881, from his camp in North Carolina, where 
he had done his last writing, where he had sung his 
last song, where he had for the last time touched the 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 383 

piano, his interest for the last time became roused in 
science, concerning some meteorological observations. 
Thus active to the end, with father, wife, and brother 
by his side, Lanier breathed his last on September 7, 
1881. 

There has been no attempt at an adequate estimate 
in such limited space as this. Little more is required 
of us than to emphasize in other channels what we have 
already claimed for Lanier's general scholarship, — 
his modernness. He was more successful as a scien- 
tific investigator than as a psychologist; this will be 
seen by close consideration of the " Science of Eng- 
lish Verse," which deals with fundamental ideas, and 
of "The English Novel," which is less unified be- 
cause appreciation can never be exact. For perspec- 
tive has changed rapidly in the development of 
fiction from the day of Augusta Evans to the day of 
Edith Wharton. Lanier was on the threshold, so to 
speak, looking over into a new and more progressive 
era. He died just as the generation of Southern 
writers known to us to-day began to rise into promi- 
nence, — men like Cable, Thompson, and Harris, whose 
Uncle Remus Lanier recognized as "fiction founded 
upon fact and so like it as to have passed into true 
citizenship and authority, along with Bottom and Au- 
tolycus." His mind was fertile, and also pregnant — 
as the New South was pregnant. For this reason, he 
occupies a justly important position in American let- 
ters ; he was not lavishly brilliant, but he was soundly y 
earnest, and his moral force was rare. As a product 
of Southern life he is no exception, even though his 
progressive views, his artistic bravery, and his concern 
for industrial adjustment placed him in ranks which 
were by no means thin, even though the South showed 
an indifference to progress. It is this alive-ness which 
separates Lanier from Hayne and Timrod, and which 
places him as the first singer of the New South, while 
they stand representative of the old regime. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SOUTHERN SCHOOL OF POETRY 

H. Hayne, Timrod, Ticknor, and Mrs. Preston 

It would have been impossible for Paul Hamilton 
Hayne to have written significantly of the New South, 
inasmuch as his whole nature was wrought of the 
fabric which the Civil War destroyed. Strange to 
say, he saw the literary weakness of his section, and 
was not slow in denouncing an individual vanity which 
prohibited the critical spirit ; but his personal interests 
were aloof from the world's advance; the scientific 
view was beyond his ken; the social awakening left 
him more than ever in isolation. 

Chronology is an arbitrary way of developing liter- 
ary history ; such a treatment would necessitate a con- 
sideration of Mrs. Preston (1820-1897), Dr. Ticknor 
(1822-1874), Timrod (1829-1867), Hayne (1830- 
1886), and Lanier (1842-1881), in the order named. 
But the forceful meaning of this only school of South- 
ern poetry lies in contrast rather than in order, a 
contrast all the more remarkable since contact, similar 
sectional devotion, and chivalrous correspondence — re- 
vealing a like consecration to art, — resulted in such 
dissimilar attitudes toward shifting conditions. 

In the technical interest of verse, we find Hayne 
content to follow the natural rhythm of his being, 
which prompted him to literature and away from law. 
Lanier and Timrod were concerned with poetic form, 
the one more scientific than the other; and Timrod far 
less hampered than Lanier by an enthusiasm for an- 

384 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 385 

tique Expression. The spectrum of change from the 
Old South to the New leads from Hayne, through 
Timrod to Lanier. In a sonnet "To Alexander H. 
Stephens," Hayne's expression is reminiscent, sound- 
ing the sad note of regret over the passing of a " stal- 
wart time " and " a worthier day.'' Poverty very 
largely cut him aloof from those advantages which 
were denied the South, but it was Hayne's cast of 
mind which determined his poetry — a cast of mind 
influenced on one hand by his relationship with Robert 
Y. Hayne, and on the other by his intimacy with 
Simms. Perhaps Lanier would have faced the past 
also, rather than the future, had he not met the scien- 
tific spirit in the denominational atmosphere of Ogle- 
thorpe College. 

Therefore, when Hayne sings of the active world, 
he does so as one who has dreamed of it far off; he 
speaks of the "mart" and of "trade" in the conven- 
tional manner of the lyrist who has never felt the 
tenseness of either. But Lanier's " The Symphony," 
even though somewhat overcrowded with strangely 
hyphenated terms, and over-insistent in its philosophy 
of chivalric love, is nevertheless tempered by the 
industrial impulse threatening the South — threatening, 
since it might either be a blessing or a blight. Hayne 
viewed the South with infinite love, but not with the 
understanding of Lanier. The latter, searching in his 
observation and quick in his kindly humor, saw the 
economics of the land as well as the beauty of environ- 
ment; otherwise he could never have conceived 
"Thar's more in the Man than thar is in the Land," 
nor in " Jones's Private Argyment " could he have 
written such stanzas as : 



He'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans, 
That farmers must stop gittin' loans, 
And git along without 'em; 



386 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

That bankers, warehousemen, and sich 

Was fatt'nin' on the planter, 
And Tennessy was rotten-rich 
A-raisin' meat and corn, all which 

Draw'd money to Atlanta: 

And the only thing (says Jones) to do 

Is, eat no meat that's boughten : 
But tear up every I U, 
And plant all corn and swear for true 

To quit a-raisin' cotton! 



We shall look in vain for such expressions from 
Hayne; in fact, he was emphatically a poet of the Old 
South, with all the beauty, grace, and courtesy of the 
old civilization. His life, not quite as tragic as Tim- 
rod's, was one of wide contrast. Born in luxury, he 
died in poverty; born just before slavery became an 
issue, he passed through the social life of Charleston 
under the domination of Simms, Crafts, and Legare; 
actively concerned in journalism, his health would not 
admit of undue exertion. Even when the war came, 
he was unable to enter active service, and had to resign 
his duties on the staff of Governor Pickens. Events 
gave him every provocation to become bitter and even 
vindictive in his war verse, but there w^as naught in him 
of the fire of Timrod, of that defiance w^hich was flung 
in the face of the despot and which rings through such 
a martial lyric as " Carolina." In him there dwelt, 
throughout the verses written between 1861 and 1865, 
a quiet, burning ardor, such as moved the knights of 
Arthur's deathless age. His songs speak lovingly of 
valor, of Southern rights, of indomitable pride. The 
war left him weary, but not bitter ; he understood the 
poignancy of Grady's reference to Sherman's care- 
lessness w^ith fire, for in the trail of that march to 
the sea, Hayne was left shattered in health, without 
money, and with a smoldering mass of debris to re- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 387 

mind him of his home, containing an invaluable col- 
lection of books. Timrod succumbed to defeat, but 
Hayne lived on through the poverty of " Copse Hill,'' 
near Augusta, Ga., with a strong moral bravery that 
rose above despair. 

The life of struggle with daily conditions is one of 
limitation ; it lacks event. But Hayne's poetry affords 
no marked indication of that poverty which might 
have embittered much stronger men than he. If his 
aloofness among the pine barrens indicates anything, 
it is that in his quiescence he showed his heritage from 
the past — his inability to labor. I have before me a 
clipping from the Charleston Daily News of 1871 — 
Hayne's sonnet on " Carolina," beginning " The fair 
young land which gave me birth is dead." Subjoined 
is a reply from a Montgomery journalist, with the 
closing lines : 

Fill not the land with nerveless, girl-like sobs; 
But work as our sires worked in days of yore. 

Work, indeed, was the remedy, but Hayne could not 
see it as Lanier did ; his legends and lyrics and poems 
are full to overflowing with a devotion to nature, as 
sincere as the ministrations of Bryant and Words- 
worth, but not quite so personal nor so tinctured with 
moral consciousness or with a philosophical point of 
view; there was never any significant questioning of 
his faith, nor yet an effort to do battle by other means 
than poetry. 

Hayne stood in direct opposition to the rest of his 
family in the development of his taste; they were 
actively engaged in public affairs, giving utterance to 
political opinion in the senate chamber ; he did not in- 
herit his father's profession as heutenant in the navy, 
nor his uncle's powers of oratory, though at school he 
was given prizes for elocution. His. education, as 



388 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

well as the Charleston society of 1850, molded him 
for other walks, and it may be rightly claimed that he 
graduated into literature through the Southern Liter- 
ary Me^ssenger and the Charleston Evening News. 
Calhoun still usurped the political horizon, and his 
nearness at Fort Hill may have spurred the young 
poet in his law studies for a while. But within the 
city itself, ruled by its false social lines, which none the 
less had to be reckoned with, Simms drew to him the 
coterie which has already been mentioned, and from 
which Hayne seems to have profited not a little. Just 
after forsaking the law, he entered journalism, serv- 
ing the usual Southern apprenticeship in ventures that 
barely survived their launching, such as the Southern 
Literary Gazette and the Washington Spectator. 

An excellent glimpse of Hayne's share in the liter- 
ary activity of ante-bellum Charleston is included by 
Trent in his life of Simms. It is surprising the num- 
ber of serious efforts made in a provincial manner 
throughout the small towns of the South to cultivate 
literary interest. No doubt, Simms monopolized the 
conversation amidst his group of devotees, but Hayne 
nevertheless asserted himself in the correspondence 
which he carried on with the Carolina autocrat. 
Richard Michel, afterwards a physician of Montgom- 
ery, was one of the group, and his sister, Mary Mid- 
delton Michel, became the wife of the struggling poet 
in 1852 — struggling at the moment for position rather 
than for subsistence. 

Professor Trent pictures Russell's book-shop in 
Charleston, where the intellectual would often gather 
of an afternoon, and where, in April, 1857, Russell's 
Magazine was launched, for a three years' career, with 
Hayne as editor, during which time loyalty to the 
South, to Simms, and to art, exacted the ingenuity of 
Hayne as well as his partisan spirit. A man of 




PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 389 

Simms' physique might be misleading; he was much 
more the sentimentaHst than Cooper, and it was the 
feminine streak in him which found such response 
with Hayne. Simms, the poet, was much more to his 
liking than Simms, the romancer, and the younger 
men looked to Simms for encouragement, which was 
freely given and sincerely meant. 

During these early years, Hayne was not inactive; 
his verses, scattered here and there in various journals, 
were gathered together in 1855, 1857, ^^^ i^59» ^^^ 
through these three volumes he gained the attention 
of the Northern poets. All was on the way toward 
prosperous recognition; his home became a center of 
attraction, and he dedicated his whole being to his 
art. In " The Will and the Wing " he would rather 

■= . .^ in the outward state 
Of Song's immortal temple lay me down, 
A beggar basking by that radiant gate, 
Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown! 

His youthful effusions gave every evidence of his 
maturer qualities, — the passion for the poet's calling, 
the thirst for natural beauty, the spirit of brooding 
peace, the reminiscent note, the mystic strain — where 
life is permeated with presentiment, where gayety is 
tempered by a certain isolation in joy, — and the chival- 
ric pose that is reflective of old Southern ideals. But 
even though, thus early, we note the extensive use of 
personification and of classic mythology, there is an 
absence of the highest imaginative quality. He lacked 
compression, a fault which was to grow beyond 
correction — a compression which gave Timrod supe- 
rior advantage over him. He lacked clear conceptions 
of the philosophy of hfe, falling thus at times into 
an incoherence akin to Lanier. We are reminded of 
the latter in reading Hayne's "Ode, delivered on the 



390 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

First Anniversary of the Carolina Art Association, 
February lo, 1856," where his enthusiasms are ex- 
pressed in lines descriptive of " a tide of all the mighty 
masters, loved, adored." Thus also sang Lanier, in 
*' The Crystal," in the excess of his devotion to art. 
But neither one contained the incisive phrasing, the 
excellent technique, of Tennyson's " The Palace of 
Art." Nevertheless, as his sensitiveness to outward 
beauty became more acute, Hayne's exquisite sensuous 
response to Nature grew to be not unlike Tennyson's. 
It must not be forgotten that at this time the English 
poet was holding wide attention; in a way, the public 
waited expectantly for something new from his pen, as 
they had earlier been led to expect installments of 
stories by Dickens and Thackeray. In the corre- 
spondence between Hayne and Mrs. Preston, there 
are flashes of this Tennyson influence; and a curious 
instance of that crystal perception of beauty, which 
was based on feeling, coupled with the poetry of com- 
mon existence, is to be noted in Mrs. Preston's com- 
ment on " Gareth and Lynette " : " Just a faint streak 
of cloudiness, such as I saw when decanting my wine 
the other day, warning me to stop, for I was approach- 
ing the dregs." 

Hayne was not a militant poet; even in the turbu- 
lent aspects of Nature he felt " a fathomless calm 
serene," and the serenity of his conception of "The 
Village Beauty " is purposely removed from the wear 
and tear of " the keen-edged world." These poets of 
the South had the flavor of the Elizabethan lyrists; 
they reflected at times the graces and formality of 
Lovelace and Collins, but they likewise revealed a 
quick appreciation of the Victorian attitude, set in nat- 
ural channels by Wordsworth. In Hayne's verse, 
however, there was not evident any keen abiHty to 
transform the commonplace by means of Words- 
worth's associative art. The bard of Grasmere was 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 391 

aloof, but not repressed; he was in an atmosphere of 
ferment and of changing mental standards. There 
were hardly what one might call standards in the 
South ; while the change was to be later. 

A man in narrow circumstances, mental or material, 
draws liberally on himself; wherever Hayne's friend- 
ship lay, there he offered up a verse. Note the sailor- 
vision of "My Father" among "Juvenaha"; the 
feeling sentiments to " My Mother," which indicate 
a certain lamentable opposition on the part of the 
Haynes to their boy, — scion of a legal house, — follow- 
ing in dalliance the trivial path of art. '' Thou didst 
not taunt my fledgeling song," he cries to the loved 
and pale face of memory. In an occasional poem, dedi- 
cated to Simms, and read on December 13, 1877, we 
find, in the midst of one of those long, rambling 
speeches in rhyme not uncommon among Southern 
poets, a sketch of the Charleston group of favored 
followers. The poem is not without vividness, and 
contains some sharp, picturesque distinctions; but it 
is rambling after the usual fashion. 

Let us glance through some of the autobfographic 
tokens of his art; it is enough to know that probably 
through the agency of Ticknor & Fields, Hayne was 
brought to the notice of Bryant, Longfellow, and 
Holmes, and that after a long struggle with poverty 
on Copse Hill, he went North in 1879, visiting the im- 
portant literary men and returning home to bind to- 
gether his verse tributes to Emerson, Whittier, Long- 
fellow, Stoddard, Stedman, Boker, Fawcett, and Tay- 
lor, toward whom he was particularly drawn. 

Not being a man of action, Hayne's life was marked 
by very few variations; in his song, he celebrated 
the making of friends; in his scant home, which be- 
came a palace to accord with his manner, he welcomed 
his friends regally; in the generosity of his spirit he 
tried to further the art of his confreres. Such desire 



392 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

prompted him, in 1872, to edit an edition of Timrod's 
poems (Hale & Son), symbolizing rare friendship; 
and, in 1879, ^^ introduced the sweet and native song 
of Ticknor. 

We must remember that such commonplace beauties 
of character bring the spirit to, a rare height of devel- 
opment, v^ithout greatly stirring the mind; if the 
intellect is moved, the result in such a nature as 
Hayne's would be yearning. That is why he some- 
times lost hold and broke forth in just, if unthinking, 
protestation against the ignorant disregard of letters 
by the Southern people. This tone crept into a dia- 
tribe which was once made public in the Northern 
press, and occasioned some ill-feeling on the part of 
Hayne's countrymen. No fair critic could doubt the 
poet's zealous concern for the honor of his section, 
or his interest in its future welfare. The monotony 
of Copse Hill, and the unabating anxiety, only 
made more apparent the lack of a reading public 
upon whom in part his support depended. It was 
true that the South did not regard with favor the man 
of literary taste; it is true that those who hoped for 
subsistence by the pen had to turn to the North. 
But Hayne's despairing cry only brought forth his 
own weakness — the inability to labor for a livelihood, 
in lines against his taste ; the lack of training such as 
comes through the routine necessity of taking pains. 
He raised a cry in the wilderness of letters, and the 
South at the moment was too sensitive to listen, too 
unwilling to separate the truth from an excess of 
personal feeling. He wrote : " I trust that few sur- 
pass me in rational patriotism, & a love for my own 
unfortunate Section, yet the truth must be confessed, 
a more uncultivated, soulless, and groveling set of 
Yahoos (so far as letters, poetry especially, are con- 
cerned) never cumbered the Earth, than these same 
people of what is called the earnest Tropical & pas- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 393 

sionate South!! If I write with bitterness, God 
knows I have good reason for being spleenful." 

Usually, Hayne's judgments were carefully worded, 
but no one weighs exactly when bread is wanting; 
the poet's art soul was hungering. His strictures 
against the literature of the South, printed in the 
Southern Magazine for June, 1874, showed critical 
acumen far outside the circle of Southern acceptance. 
Few could see how true it was that the worst enemies 
to the intellectual South were those whose fulsome 
praise destroyed advancement, exhibiting thereby 
no cultural experience. Such criticism covered up 
where it should have exposed; and certainly Hayne's 
questioning was sound. " Can the foundations of an 
enduring literature be laid in the quagmires of indi- 
vidual vanity? Can a people's mental dignity and 
aesthetic culture be vindicated by petting incompetency, 
and patting ignorance and self-sufficiency on the 
back?" 

It was in 1866 that Hayne and his wife moved in 
the vicinity of Grovetown, the poet's health broken, 
his worldly goods scant and meager. For twenty years 
he was thus to exist, sustained largely by a womanly 
devotion, so fitly and gracefully recorded in " The 
Bonny Brown Hand." The cottage at Copse Hill was 
prepossessing because of the personalities within. 
After a walk of a half-mile from the Georgia railroad, 
the traveler was greeted with the courtesy of a past 
age, which was, as Maurice Thompson felt it to be, 
when he visited Hayne in 1881, "magnetically profuse 
with gracious welcome." 

The dwelling was rude, with boards insecurely 
joined, such "as one sees occupied by the trackmen's 
families along any railroad " ; here, seated at a desk 
which had once served as a carpenter's workbench, 
Hayne followed his craft. Thompson's reminiscence 
of his visit sounds the note of regret that so much 



394 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

beauty of natural expression should have been wasted 
in such an arid spot; he regarded Hayne as the best 
possible example of art that could exist under the 
blighting e;ffects of slavery, but he deplored his friend's 
inability to realize the true cause for the literary back- 
wardness of the section. Yet, no one in the pres- 
ence of Hayne could fail to recognize his deep devo- 
tion to art, however untutored. He was an excellent 
talker, with a fund of anecdote that smacked of the 
country. Reminding Thompson somewhat of Robert 
Louis Stevenson, Hayne likewise symbolized to him 
the past, which was peculiar and distinctive of a slave 
civiHzation ; already one could detect how much of a 
stranger Hayne would be with the advent of a New 
South, and Thompson wrote: "In parting with 
Hayne at the end of my visit, the feeling came that 
here was the close of an era." 

The home-spirit took the place of large activity to 
Hayne ; we know that in " The Cottage on the Hill,'' — 
a sonnet saturated with feeling. He could draw from 
any surroundings enough beauty to give momentary 
satisfaction to his craving — the aspect of pines, the 
phases of woodland, the windless rains, even sunset 
on the pine barrens; in such subjects one recognizes 
a greater originality of treatment than of inward 
vision. Hayne, as a Southerner, is all the more re- 
markable for the manner in which he avoided imita- 
tion. 

The eruption of war had hurled him on this spot, 
so Hayne claimed, and after a fashion he made it a 
shrine. On its rough timber, Thompson detected pen- 
ciled initials of Timrod and Simms; no poet, whether 
Shelley in " Adonais," or Tennyson in " In Memo- 
riam," could utter deeper threnodies than " Under the 
Pine," to the memory of Timrod, or the lines penned 
by Timrod's grave, or " The Pole of Death," dedicated 
to Lanier. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 395 

As a memorial poet, Hayne fell back on his full 
developed belief; the power of mind, the might of 
nations were as naught before the will of God. Death 
to him resulted in pure lyric grief, in resignation, but 
in no passionate disbelief. If he cried, as in the 
case of Dean Stanley, " Yet, by Christ's blood, I know 
he is not dead ! " it was to proclaim the spirit above 
the body. But in these verses he did not let his mind 
linger on what the world's messages might be; it was 
enough for him that great souls, by death, were " made 
perfect in the eternal noon." Perhaps, in speaking 
of the liberal air of heaven, Hayne broke the limits 
of his earthly environment, and lived in a great white 
calm. Still, even in the poems dedicated to those 
kindred artists he met in the North, we cannot but note 
the aloofness of interest, the estimate of man above his 
mission, the reverence for the universal artist above 
his relation to the age in which he lived. To his 
friend, Mrs. Preston, Hayne continually spoke of the 
threatening age of doubt, of the decline of faith; had 
he been thrown, as Tennyson was, in the current of 
the time, he might have regarded the approach of 
science differently. But his Southern temperament 
held him fast. He wrote : 



O man ! when faith succumbs, and reason reels, 

Before some impious, bold iconoclast, 

Turn to thy heart that reasons not, but feels; 

Creeds change! shrines perish! ^^^7/ (her instinct saith), 

Still the soul lives, the soul must conquer Death. 

Hold fast to God, and God will hold thee fast. 

The bravery with which Hayne met life after the 
war was characteristic of all the people of the South. 
This man, sorely pressed for a livelihood, could be- 
lieve with that spiritual fortitude which prompted the 
" Lyric of Action," bearing the tidings that " 'tis the 
part of a coward to brood." Hayne's exultation was 



396 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

unable to be terse and definite. Browning expressed 
the sentiment in lyric compression : " God's in His 
Heaven, alFs right with the world." After war, 
Hayne's one desire was for peace ; the burden of many 
of his sonnets is for calm. 

Thus we could continue in a more analytic fashion 
to discuss individual poems and the preferences of 
Hayne's critics, but we would reach no clearer con- 
cept of the poet's dominant characteristics. If he had 
no large vision as to the destiny of peoples, we needs 
must believe, with Mr. Higginson, that this was 
because Hayne was denied a nation, even the lost 
nation of the Confederacy; in fact, declared this critic, 
"much of the scantiness and aridity of our early 
American literature must undoubtedly be ascribed to 
the fact that it appeared at a time when the United 
States meant a strip along the Atlantic shore." 

Yet, despite these limitations, Hayne's verse was 
strong — strong in its sweetness of spiritual beauty, — 
full of dignity and generous response, full of vivid 
color, characteristic of the South as well as of the 
quality of his Muse. Through excess of feeling he 
never forsook appropriateness. Such a sonnet as 
" October," with its opening line, " The passionate 
summer's dead! the sky's aglow," such a flow of ap- 
preciation as fills " The Mocking-Bird " are suggestive 
of Keats, if not as final in word-phrasing. On one 
hand, there was a pastoral quality to his lines, as 
though no life existed outside the pine barrens of his 
life; on the other, there was the sufficiency of be- 
lief. These are the limits of Hayne; spiritually 
they made him bigger than Timrod, but not as 
impelling; artistically they made him at times the 
equal of Lanier in color and value of words, but never 
as far-reaching in view. Sometimes he was close 
to Nature in her larger aspects ; at other times, strictly 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 397 

Southern In local luxuriance. He was dexterous 
In the sonnet form, but his lyricism was often over- 
weighted; he was ambitious in dramatic endeavor, 
but could not escape the formalities of a stereo- 
typed sort which Hugo, Dumas, and Bulwer Insti- 
tuted. His accomplishment, none the less, Entitles 
him to a larger place than he holds at present In Amer- 
ican literature. 

But considering the attention his work received in 
his own country and abroad, reflecting that through 
correspondence Hayne had the opportunity to widen 
his mental vision, he, nevertheless, shut his ear to the 
sound of any forward tread. In his little home, he 
kept In touch with literary production, but his head 
was above the clouds and his feet were not solidly on 
earth. He tested the artist by no standard but that of 
personal appeal, and since that personal appeal was 
high, the standard was necessarily high; he detected 
no fermentation In the land. His desire to go to 
Europe was the longing Increased by the hope of 
meeting such friends as Jean Ingelow and Swin- 
burne. 

A memorial chapel was erected in Grovetown in 
honor of the man who died at Copse Hill on July 6, 
1886. His voice had not sounded the clear martial 
note of the warrior, although such a ballad as " Mac- 
donald's Raid," barring a few halting lines, Is effec- 
tive and spirited. Can we say more than that Hayne 
was a sweet singer? His aloofness from condition 
prevented his advance ; he rested where he was, and it 
was not long before even Lanier could feel him of an- 
other age. 

Men of such temperament always suffer in the final 
estimate, and their hold becomes less as their sweet- 
ness and light are absorbed in the general atmosphere 
of a past epoch. 



398 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

III 

The fate of Timrod (1829-1867) is the acme of 
tragedy; its tone is akin to Hayne, its agony sharper 
and briefer; even his Muse was more intense in pas- 
sion. Poverty dogged his footsteps to the very last, 
standing in the way of his advancement from the time 
he was forced to cut short his career at the University 
of Georgia to the time when, at the close of his life, he 
was obliged to give up the idea of visiting literary 
friends in the North, because of the lack of necessary 
funds. Yet, through it all, he moved with gentle 
humor, high enthusiasm, indomitable spirit, and a con- 
stant glow of high resolve and moral purpose. It is 
difficult in literature to find a more pitiable example 
of persistent ill-fortune and of unrequited ambition. 

His struggle of mind and body was due to outward 
circumstance and to physical weakness. Timrod was as 
much the victim of war as if he had been killed on the 
battle-field. "We have lived for a long period," so 
he wrote to Hayne, " and are still living, on the pro- 
ceeds of the gradual sale of furniture and silver plate. 
We have — let me see — ^yes, we have eaten two silver 
pitchers, one or two dozen silver forks, several sofas, 
innumerable chairs, and a huge bedstead." Such was 
the strain constantly overshadowing his life. The 
cause for which he had sung was lost, and his mind, 
not attuned to peace, was in no fit condition to seek out- 
let in Northern periodicals. He was ready for any 
sacrifice ; he would even cast every line he had written 
" to eternal oblivion for one hundred dollars in hand." 

We cannot question the literary output of the 
South in the face of such dire examples. Timrod 
was bequeathed his gift from his father, who had fig- 
ured in the Seminole War, and who was of German 
origin; he could look back with pride to ancestors in 
the Charleston Fusiliers of the Revolution. From 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 399 

his Scotch-Irish mother, a woman of rare beauty and 
rich culture,, he inherited his nature-love and some of 
the tenacity of his moral fiber. 

It is interesting to read the lines written by his 
father, William Henry Timrod (1792-1838); happy 
expressions are occasionally found, but their chief 
value is to be seen in a delicacy of feeling which the 
son developed later to such an intense degree. Liter- 
ary tradition has treasured Washington Irving's ex- 
clamation over the elder Timrod's " To Time, the Old 
Traveler " — that its lyric quality was comparable to 
the best of Tom Moore, if not finer. Amidst an un- 
inspired assemblage of words in " The Mocking-Bird," 
the picture is flashed in one highly colored line, *' The 
little crimson-breasted Nonpareil " ; and the senti- 
ments addressed by the father to his son exhibit a 
certain stateliness which always characterized the old- 
time Southern gentleman's regard for children. If 
the elder Timrod ranked among his contemporaries as 
a poet, he was an excellent type of the artist who used 
his Muse as an accomplishment. Nevertheless, from 
his Hterary shop, where bookbinding was done, Tim- 
rod, famed as a good conversationalist, sent forth his 
numerous effusions, some relating to the political 
topic of the day — the nullification excitement of 
1832; and he even conceived a five-act drama, follow- 
ing the example of many Carolina residents of the 
time. 

It is positive, therefore, that Henry Timrod had an 
escutcheon which even Charleston could not question. 
Fortunately, to a certain point, his education was as- 
sured, and in the primary schools he first met Hayne, 
who was twxnty-three days his junior. Side by side 
they sat, and to his new companion Timrod confided 
his first effusion — a love poem which in temper was 
far different from the Northern schoolmaster, who put 
a summary stop to momentary consultation. Timrod 



400 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

is pictured as slow of speech but quick of mind, like 
Burns; his classic taste, at the university, placed him 
in possession of a large store of Virgil and Horace and 
.^schylus ; he likewise devoted much time to English 
poetry and letters. 

He was thus well equipped, when ill-health and 
slack income came between him and graduation. Then, 
like Hayne, he turned to law, reading under the guid- 
ance of James L. Petigru, and, like Hayne, forsaking 
Coke for literary struggle. Even at college, under a 
fictitious name, he sent his love lyrics to the local 
papers— a habit which he continued when, between 
1 848- 1 853, he submitted contributions to the South- 
ern Literary Messenger, under the nom de plume of 
Aglaus. 

Unlike Hayne, however, Timrod strove for more 
lucrative employment than verse writing. He obtained 
the post of tutor in the family of Murray Robinson 
of Orangeburg, where there was leisure for composi- 
tion and reading, as well as for visits to Charleston. 
During this time, his thoughts were centered on the 
possibility of a professorship in some college. 

Russell's Magazine afforded Timrod another chan- 
nel for his poetry, which increased sufficiently in bulk 
to warrant the publication of a volume by Ticknor 
& Fields in i860. Praise came to him from Hayne, 
and, more significant still, from the New York Trib- 
une, At this moment, the approach of war turned 
the voice of Timrod in other directions. 

We have already discussed the martial lyrics which 
Timrod wrote with a zest amounting almost to vindic- 
tive bitterness; in default of his personal participation 
in the conflict, because of poor health, they rang forth 
in fervid summons and with indomitable courage. All 
the more passionate were they in the light of defeat, 
but they served their immediate purpose; they were 
heeded, Charlestonians and other Southerners even 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 401 

subscribing to the local papers so as to have his edi- 
torial songs. After the battle of Shiloh, Timrod went 
forth as war-correspondent for the Charleston Mer- 
cury, and again his strength failed him, and he was 
obliged to return, this time to Columbia, where he be- 
came editor of the South Carolinian. All this while, 
he was not without literary reputation, which among 
his Southern friends gave him an official standing as 
representing the voice of the South. Such a feeling 
largely actuated the concerted move, during 1862, to 
issue a London edition of his poems, in the belief, no 
doubt, that the war lyrics would have sympathetic ef- 
fect upon the British public. 

The one bright spot in this period of stress and 
strain was Timrod's marriage with Miss Kate God- 
win, an English girl whose brother had wed the poet's 
sister. Then came the dark trail of Sherman, and the 
death of a baby boy, and the incipient signs of con- 
sumption, with the consequent " beggary, starvation, 
bitter grief, and utter want of hope." As though the 
weight upon his frail shoulders was not enough, his 
widowed sister and her children turned to him for aid. 

Here, then, is another example of Christian forti- 
tude in the face of insuperable discouragement; the 
father-love that had been deprived of rich joy was 
bestowed on Hayne's son; the willingness to work 
met requital only in odd clerical tasks which kept 
him in the Governor's office at times through the 
long hours of the night and early morning. The one 
constant factor in Timrod's nature was his genius; 
otherwise, as Maurice Thompson declared, he was 
"born to fail at the verge of every opportunity.'* 
Even such a small post as Messenger of the South 
Carolina House of Representatives was denied him, 
and then, in the weakness of his physical condition, he 
was sent to visit Hayne at Copse Hill. 

The chief impulse prompting this Southern poet 



402 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

was his natural devotion to art; we cannot designate 
its practice as a calling, for the reason that the com- 
munity regarded literary expression as an accident, 
rather than as a necessity. In the economic adjust- 
ment which was struggling beneath the load of Recon- 
struction, there was no place calculated for the literary 
man; oratory had not sufficiently allowed the news- 
paper to appeal to public opinion, and editorial writ- 
ing was not heeded and in consequence not paid for. 
In such an atmosphere, the poet was given no incen- 
tive for preparation ; he had no immediate check upon 
himself, save his own conception of what true art was. 
He lived in aloofness and in constant strain. Even 
when stretched low in his last illness, Timrod deplored 
that he was so helpless at such an awkward time. He 
cried: '*We are destitute of funds, almost of food. 
But God will provide." 

Death came as a relief to our Southern poets; it 
was the salvation of Poe; it was the peace-offering to 
Lanier, who closed his eyes by the open window, ful- 
filling Arnold's desire in " A Wish," to see 

Once more, before my dying eyes, 
Bathed in the sacred dews of morn 

The wide aerial landscape spread — 
The world which was ere I was born, 

The world which lasts when I am dead. 

It was also a blessed cessation of pain for Timrod 
to die; during the time his energy faded from him, 
his mind seemed crystal clear, as he would quote his 
Wordsworth. He marched to his end with that quiet 
conviction expressed in ** A Common Thought " : 

Somewhere on this earthly planet 

In the dust of flowers to be, 
In the dewdrop, in the sunshine, 

Sleeps a solemn day for me. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 403 

It IS not the province of criticism to over-accentuate 
such details as Hayne gives of the last visit from 
Timrod; but the scenes are symbolic of the beauty of 
these men's souls under stress; it was not the tension 
which makes for energy, but the strain which pre- 
cedes a long peace. Its exquisite cleansing effect is 
indicative of a most beautiful communion. These 
brother-poets had much to talk about, and upon 
Hayne's son, Timrod lavished a paternal devotion 
which brought comfort in the face of memory. One 
verse from Hayne's " Under the Pine " expresses the 
transformation : 



O Tree ! against thy mighty trunk he laid 

His weary head; thy shade 

Stole o'er him like the first cool spell of sleep; 

It brought a peace so deep 

The unquiet passion died from out his eyes, 

As lightning from stilled skies. 



The end came on October 7, 1867; some say that 
on Timrod's bed were found proof-sheets stained 
in blood; others mention the fulfillment of his own 
prophecy of dying when the hour "purples in the 
zenith." A governor of the State and a general of 
the Confederacy helped to bear the frail singer to his 
grave. 

And now, through the stretch of years, our view of 
Timrod should be clearer than it is ; his voice is surer, 
sounder and more sustained than Hayne's, and were 
it not for an aloofness of spirit and a placidity of intel- 
lect, he might have surpassed Lanier in some respects. 
He was not adventurous in the realm of poetry ; he did 
not formulate theories but warmly defended estab- 
lished principles. 

He framed his creed, as every singer has, expressed 
at too great length in " A Vision of Poesy," but with 



404 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

no abatement of his divine mission, and with no lack 
of occasional sensitive beauty. Such a poem cannot 
escape relationship of a close character v^ith one's own 
being. Timrod, brought into contact with quicken- 
ing forces, would have flowered into exceptional beauty. 
Poesy avows : " I am the voice of Freedom " in opposi- 
tion to the South's intellectual bondage ; " The Poet 
to the whole wide world belongs " comes the assertion 
once more, despite the guardedness of Southern civili- 
zation. It was the tragedy of Timrod, that far off 
he saw the flash of science, the necessity of willing, 
the moral significance of aspiration under favorable 
conditions ; but such a horizon was foreign at the mo- 
ment to his section. Very largely he fulfilled, as far 
as he himself was concerned, his concept of the mission 
of poetry: 

My task hath been, beneath a mightier Power, 
To keep the world forever fresh and young. . . . 

I turn life's tasteless waters into wine,_ 

And flash them through and through with purple tints. 

Now and again he echoed Keats, and in the desire 
to be strong, yet gentle as a girl, he set the propor- 
tions of his own nature. There are glints of Words- 
worth in the second part, glints also of a democratic 
desire to " represent the race and speak for all " ; the 
cosmic law which presages order in the universe came 
to him probably through Tennyson. 

Yet, however autobiographic " A Vision of Poesy " 
may be, it represents potential intellectual powers, 
rather than characteristic touches of Timrod's art. 
Hayne was sensitive to outward beauty ; Timrod like- 
wise was prompted by the same love for Nature, in- 
tensified by a fuller realization of the inward mystery 
of life. This was the result of his devotion to Words- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 405 

worth. And ofttimes, as in "The Summer Bower/' 
we note the moral color given to the scene in con- 
sonance with Wordsworth's personal attitude toward 
the objective world. Timrod had much of this pur- 
pose in his composition — the purpose behind "The 
meanest flower that blows" or "Flower in your 
crannied wall." 

There was naught of physical vigor in his verse, 
unless it expressed sectional feeling, as in " Carolina," 
"A Cry to Arms," and " Ethnogenesis " — a wrathful 
energy none the less stirring for all its defiance to 
the Goths and Huns of the North — an energy vvhich 
ebbed into sweet expressive supplications for peace, 
in the tender poem, " Christmas." 

Save in these martial lyrics, Timrod's vitality was 
not due to strife, but to moments of thoughtful ease, 
such as he pictured in " Retirement." Yet to him 
there was no end of power and vigor in Nature. He 
writes, in " Spring " : 

In the deep heart of every forest tree 
The blood is all aglee. 

Note a verse from an "Ode to the Confederate 
Dead": 

In seeds of laurel in the earth 
The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 
The shaft is in the stone. 

Nature was not formal to Timrod, nor did he re- 
fuse to see in it only the color of the South. " Spring," 
barring the bitter note in the last stanzas, is sensate 
with beauty, harmed in its sharp delicacy by its lack 
of condensation. " The Cotton Boll," mistaken in its 
economic faith, is none the less telling in its imagina- 



4o6 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tive stretch, in its rich loyalty, in some of its effect- 
ive phrasing, — even challenging comparison with La- 
nier's " Corn." But here again we note the impossi- 
bility of these poets — save Lanier — to see the curse 
that lay in the prodigality of Nature, with her conse- 
quent stamp upon the "steadfast dweller on the self- 
same spot," whose "mild content rebukes the land." 
They could not escape a habit of mind. 

While one grants, with Axon, that Timrod is a 
minor poet, that his expression lacks " high austerity 
of manner " and keen originality of thought, while it is 
also true that he possessed a " clear spiritual insight 
which sometimes produces the effect of thought," these 
limitations do not decrease his lyrical charm or his 
moral purity and earnestness. His sentiment found 
full expression in the poems to his wife, " A Dedica- 
tion " and "Katie," and to "Our Willie," behind 
which lurks the tenderness and the simple expression 
of " We are Seven." " A Mother's Wail " is two-fold 
in its construction, with a contemplation after the 
storm of grief, almost Celtic in its blinding melancholy, 
in its shadowy visions. It touches by reason of its flow 
of sorrow; it is not alive with the eternal verities of 
Tennyson's philosophy. In fact, there was no system 
to Hayne's and Timrod's belief. 

It may be wrong to bring a minor poet into juxta- 
position with the highest standards, but, in defense, 
these men — it must be reiterated — were inspired by the 
highest art; their responsive tastes deplored the in- 
ferior verse which locality treasured and defended 
against true criticism. They likewise fell into trite 
expression, but no one was near to correct them in 
their work. 

Timrod was characteristically Southern in his lighter 
sentiment, found in " The Lily Confidante," " On 
Pressing Some Flowers" and "Love's Logic"; and 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 407 

his lyric devotion to his wife in "An Exotic" ap- 
proached the epitome of cultured delicacy in such 
stanzas as: 

Her beauty, perhaps, was all too bright, 
But about her there broods some delicate spell, 

Whence the wondrous charm of the girl grows soft 
As the light in an English dell. 

Timrod, in his workmanship, exemplified the oft- 
used thought that man's natural expression is 
rhythmic; and in a most terse estimate, Mr. R. A. 
Bowen is wise in calling him " a poet born but not a 
poet made, and, therefore, . . . not a thorough poet 
after all." 

It is well to use Dr. Ward's statement in further 
contrasting Timrod with his contemporaries, for un- 
doubtedly he showed an inclination " toward broadly 
religious or spiritual musing." This tendency may 
have come with his close following of some of the 
literature current at the time, as well as with his famil- 
iarity with Coleridge and Matthew Arnold. His 
reading was unsystematized and he had no pretensions 
to scholarship. In fact, his prose, while adequate in 
expression, was hardly what one could consider pene- 
trating in thought ; he lost the scientific in an excess of 
instinctive understanding that was colored by feeling. 
Because of this, his definition of poetry is deprived of 
cogency, though it begins well : " Its aim is to pene- 
trate to the essence, to analyze and comprehend those 
impressions and operations of the mind, acting upon 
and being acted upon by mental or physical phenomena, 
which, when incarnated in language, all recognize as 
the utterance of poetry, and which affects us like the 
music of angels." 

In his "Theory of Poetry," writing in opposition 
to Poe, Timrod analyzed the subtle connections in 
" Paradise Lost " leading to its essential structure as 



4o8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

a long poem. Likewise, showing how much of a dis- 
ciple he was of Wordsworth, he devoted some space 
in his ''Rationale of Verse " to the belief that morality 
IS inherent in beauty. 

But such generalizations had no appreciable effect 
on his own poetry; he knew no deep reasons for the 
excellences of verse, rather depending upon a nice ear 
than upon the science of prosody. His conception 
of the sonnet was thus instinctive, and caught from a 
particular fondness for the form, so especially perfect 
in Wordsworth. What is most significant about his 
utterances on the sonnet, is his refusal to fall back 
utterly on the inspirational theory of poetry, a 
theory which encouraged the Southern dilettante in 
whom emotion was plentiful; he realized, if he did not 
continually make use of, " the hour of patient and 
elaborate execution." 

Timrod's own sonnets are his greatest defense of 
the form itself; they are full of moral beauty, and 
though trite expressions destroy their whole effective- 
ness, the thought is naturally held within the form, 
without being forced or curtailed by artificial com- 
pression. Perhaps they are the most conscious ex- 
amples of his art and the least native; perhaps, also, 
their tendency to lyricism is more appropriate to the 
lyric form; still they represent Timrod's best charac- 
teristics as a man, if not his most graceful expression. 

As we have said, his conception of poetry was nigh, 
and in his democracy he would bid the poet " Cling 
to the lowly earth, and be content ! '* In accord with 
Lanier, he would have had "Love, like a visible God 
... be our guide." He did not write as much as 
Hayne, but his lyricism was sharper, and that, to 
Lanier, the critic, was the essential of all the highest 
lyrics. Writing of Hayne, he once said : " The ideal 
of the lyric poem is a brief, sweet, intense, electric 
flashing of the lyric idea in upon the hurrying intelli- 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 409 

gence of men, so that the vivid truth may attack even 
an unwilHng retina, and perpetuate itself thereupon 
even after the hasty eyehd has closed to shut out the 
sight." 

If, therefore, there is one characteristic above all 
else to accentuate the name of Henry Timrod, other 
than the agony of his life, it is the occasional com- 
pelling force of his lyric beauty. 



IV 

We have exhausted whatever points of originality 
there are in the Southern poetry of this period. Dr. 
Francis Orrery Ticknor (1822-1874) does not even 
approach his contemporaries in the variety of his in- 
terests ; his observation was narrowed, until his verse 
partook of a local essence which is full of neighbor- 
hood beauty. He brought to Columbus, Ga., Virginia 
tradition and New Jersey inheritance; his medical 
training represented a limited contact with the North, 
but the slender stream of his inspiration flowed 
through a territory not far beyond " Torch Hill," the 
plantation just outside the town of Columbus itself. 

One may follow the Georgia and Virginia strains 
in Ticknor's poems; they throb with an associative 
touch that measures a chivalric attitude, a leisurely 
humor, a graceful sentiment, and an inherited reli- 
gious bearing. The Ticknor family deplore the fact 
that the small volume, edited by Kate Mason Rowland, 
prefaced by Hayne, and published by the Lippincotts 
in 1879, omitted many of his most distinctive poems, 
but it is not likely that the poet ever surpassed the 
limits of his environment, so clearly denoted in this 
slender collection. 

For one must not deceive oneself regarding the 
literary isolation of Columbus, or even regarding the 
indifference of Ticknor, as to the wide appeal of his 



4IO THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

occasional efforts; he did not seek a publisher for 
them; he was content to submit them to the brief 
appreciation of the newspaper reader. 

Such pure lyrics as he wrote cannot be discounted; 
however, they should not be overemphasized. Ticknor 
was what he was, a country physician whose kind- 
ness was larger than his income, who found content 
in things near at hand; he cultivated his garden and 
farmed with no inconsiderable success ; he evep wrote 
for a horticultural paper in Athens, Georgia, and 
amidst his strictly rural occupations, amidst his pro- 
vincial influences, his rustic being uttered sentiments 
relating to the intimate objects of his love and of his 
affection. 

When Ticknor purchased " Torch Hill," he was 
already married to Rosalie, the daughter of Major 
T. N. Nelson; for twenty -five years these two lived 
on their farm overlooking the valley of the Chatta- 
hoochee. In the stanzas entitled ** The Farmer Man,'* 
the poet turns critic of himself, and paints a lazy pic- 
ture, a landscape with considerable tone, but deplorably 
lacking in vigor. An unfortunate commentary that 
the Southern planter should see his world, framed 
between his heels, as he sat idly viewing the purple 
hills and the natural beauty of a Southern stretch. 
There is naught impelling in the verse of Ticknor. 

Yet " Little Giffin " is a gem of heroic ideality, and 
" The Virginians of the Valley " exquisite in its bal- 
lad form. Maurice Thompson compares these lyrics 
with those of Beranger; there is no conscious effort 
in them, no excess of bombastic emotion. Ticknor 
had the happy faculty of saying simply what was 
uppermost in his feelings ; his lyric sounded the strain 
of the Cavalier — a mixture of devotion, romantic hero- 
worship, and gentle melancholy which comes with de- 
feat, but there are no distinctive features by which to 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 411 

accentuate his works. They possess a home philoso- 
phy which is instilled into all of us at an early age; 
they contain a lingering sweetness that permeated 
every Southern day of the old order. They are full 
of Georgia, and especially of Columbus; across the 
fields from him was the neighboring plantation of 
" Esquiline Hill," which became the source of inspira- 
tion for many lyrics ; from " Torch Hill '' in the 
twilight he could see the town with its faint lights 
— that town which a jessamine leaf could hide thus 
far from his view, which inclination and occupation 
could keep froip his heart. 

Ticknor aptly illustrates what was at the same time 
the grace and weakness of the best Southern lyric 
poetry; he instinctively cared for the outward form 
of his verse, without being much concerned about its 
inward structure; from his narrow vision he sang 
of common things, and of friends, and even of the 
features of the landscape. Where his casual eye 
rested, there he sang. His idea of " The Hills " is 
only faintly suggested, with an indefinite aroma of 
learning, and an emotional sweep of expression. His 
science, his religion, his social views were all those of 
a countryman ; he was proud of his dual role in *' Poeta 
in Rure." His misgivings were that 

Within these fields of care and strife 

A man may come, no doubt, 
To be a poet, all his life, 

And never find it out. 

And his belief was that he who labored, worked in 
vain, if he 

, . . reared no blossom when he wrought 

With summer on the plain, 
No garland of a golden thought 

To glorify his grain. 



412' THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Ticknor possessed artistic sensitiveness ; he was mu- 
sician and artist and poet ; his conversation v^as hold- 
ing, his manner slow. He allowed his horse to amble 
on the road from town, and he breathed in too freely 
the quietness of a country atmosphere. This certainly 
weakened the value of his verse, and did not percepti- 
bly increase his material wealth. Nature was bounti- 
ful, and home was all the world he most wanted. 

One cannot, with Hayne, detect the culture in his 
verse, though there is a refinement of manner which 
is part of the Southerner's charm; more readily can 
one see in Ticknor's war lyrics that sturdy character 
which Maurice Thompson rightly claims is back of 
" a genuine popular ballad." But it was lack of proper 
stimulus that limited Ticknor. The lotus quality of 
his verse was the lotus quality of his life. He delved 
in the soil, but saw not the force within. 



Spiritual fervor is the chief stamp of Southern 
poetry. Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-1897) 
showed this to a marked degree, and her career was 
all the more of interest, in that but few women in 
the South cultivated the profession of letters. In 
1848, her father became president of Washington Uni- 
versity in Lexington, Va., and was later succeeded by 
Robert E. Lee. Thus thrown in the midst of a cul- 
tured atmosphere, it is small wonder that the daughter 
should have imbibed a variety of knowledge In her 
talk with the professors — a method of learning rich, 
but by no means systematic. From the Covenanter 
stock she drew her fervor, and a natural love for 
the beautiful was more fully developed by her keen 
appreciation of the Brownings, Tennyson, and Long- 
fellow. 

Moreover, she married, in 1857, Professor J. T. L. 



CIVIL WAR PERIOD 413 

Preston, of the Virginia Military Institute, who 
further encouraged her in her intellectual inclinations, 
even though members of his family highly disapproved 
of a woman seeking print. As a link with the past, 
Preston had been a friend of Poe. 

The seriousness of the religious training which was 
given her, tempered her feelings somewhat; it like- 
wise had great effect upon the character of " Stone- 
wall" Jackson, who married Mrs. Preston's sister. 
In fact, for the proper appreciation of social forces af- 
fecting both the educational and outside mental inter- 
ests of Lexington, one must necessarily consider the 
Scotch-Irish element, and the strict Calvinistic stern- 
ness of Mrs. Preston's Presbyterian father. 

Still, this in no way limited her ambition; and she 
studied so continuously as to harm her sight ; she wrote 
much, practicing every variety of form. Her corre- 
spondence accentuates many points; the Southern 
woman had much to contend with in the profession 
of letters, on the side of prejudice, of isolation, and 
of womanly duties. She felt the odds against her, 
and she wrote for the sheer love of expression, 
without making any effort to claim the title of poet. 
Mrs. Preston's correspondence with Hayne, whom^ she 
never met, contains the whole history of her intellectual 
bearing, of her inspiration and aspiration. She had 
much in common with her contemporaries in the 
South, and during the war, while her husband was on 
the field, she kept a diary, the first entry being April, 
1862, which is more significant for our purpose than 
the lines of sentiment which have no distinctive quality 
outside of the usual Southern sentiment. As part 
of the atmosphere of the Civil War, " Beechenbrook " 
should be read, for it was popular in its day. It was 
written upon rough paper made in the Confederacy, 
and was read to the soldiers by Preston, who carried 
it with him in installments. Her lyrics range from 



414 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

the stirring conception of " Through the Pass " to 
poems of pure devotional strain. Her excellences 
were largely those of character, for her art was hap- 
hazard, practiced as her daily duties would allow. 

She corresponded widely with literary people. 
She went abroad, writing Hayne from the Grasmere 
of his dreams ; she prepared reminiscences of Jackson 
and Lee, even attempting fiction which depicts Vir- 
ginia life. But the social student should turn to 
her for just those details she preserved in her " Jour- 
nal of War Times." Such record is significant. 
Her poetry was diversified in topic but hardly varied 
in interest; her influences were undoubtedly across 
seas, and we see the shadow of Mrs. Browning in her 
verse. Here then is another poet of the South, with 
no definite meaning, no consuming power, no dominant 
note. 



V 
THE NEW SOUTH 



TABLE OF AUTHORS* 



1822- 1898 . . 


RiCHARD Malcolm Johnston 


. . Georgia 


1825- 1903 . . 


. . J. L. M. Curry . . 


. . Alabama 


1838- 1905 . . 


Albion Tourgee 


. . Louisiana 


1838- . . 


. F. HoPKiNSON Smith . 


. . Maryland 


1840- 


Henry Watterson 


Kentucky 


1844- 


. . George W. Cable . . 


. . Louisiana 


1845- 1903 . . 


John Henry Boner 


. N. C, N. Y. 


1845- 1909 . . 


. . John B. Tabb . . 


Virginia ^j 


1845- . . 


. George Herbert Sass . 


South Carolina 


1847- 1904 . . 


Carlyle McKinley 


. . Ga., S. C. ' 


1848- 1908 . 


. Joel Chandler Harris . 


. . Georgia ' 


1849- 


James Lane Allen 


. . Kentucky 


.-1849- . ] 


Frances Hodgson Burnett, England, Tenn., D. C. 


1850- 


Charles Egbert Craddock 


. . Kentucky 


1850- 


. . Robert Burns Wilson . 


. . Pa., Ky. 


I85I-I889 . . 


. . Henry Grady . . 


. . Georgia 


1852- 


. . . Grace King . . 


. Louisiana 


I853-I879 . 


. . Irwin Russell , . 


. . Miss., La. 


1853- 


. . Thomas Nelson Page . 


. . Virginia 


1854- 


Harry Stillwell Edwards 


. . Virginia 


1854- 


. . Samuel Minturn Peck . 


. . Alabama 


1855- 


. . . Walter H. Page . . 


North Carolina 


1856- 


. . . Alcee Fortier . . 


. . Louisiana 


1856- 


. William Hamilton Hayne 


. . S. C, Ga.--^ 


i8S7- 


. . Frank L. Stanton 


. . Georgia 


1858- . 


. . . Yates Snowden . . 


South Carolina 


1858- 


. . . Will N. Harben . . 


. . Georgia 


1859- 


. . Danske Dandridge 


. West Virginia 


1861- 


. . Edwin A. Alderman . 


. . N.CVa. 


1862- 


. . . W. P. Trent . . 


Virginia, Tenn. 


1864- 


. . . Benjamin Sledd . . 


. . Va., N. C 


1864- 1909 . 


. John Bell Henneman . 


. S. C, Tenn. - 


1864- 


. . . Robert Love man 


. Georgia, 


1865- 


. . . Madison Cawein . . 


. . Kentucky^' 


1866- 


. . . Walter Malone . . 


Miss., Tenn. 


1869- 


Edgar Gardner Murphy 


Texas, Alabama 


1860- 


. . John Fox, Jr. . . 


. . Kentucky"'' 


1870- 


. . . Mary Johnston . . 


. . Virginia 


1872- 


. . . Edwin Mims . . 


North Carolina 


1874- 


. . . Ellen Glasgow . . 


Virginia 



7 



* Among other Southern writers, may be mentioned Miss 
Sarah Barnwell Elliott (Tenn.). Mrs. Burton Harrison (1846, 
Virginia), Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy, 1863, Virginia), 
Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle (Tenn.), Mrs. Ruth McEnery 
Stuart (La.), Mrs. M. E. M. Davis (1852, Ala., Texas, La.), 
Miss Molly Elliott Seawell (i860, Virginia). Samuel L. Clem- 
ens (1835-1910), because of his birth in Missouri, is regarded 
by some historians as a Southern product. 

Among the negro writers may be mentioned : Booker T. 
Washington (1859 [?L Va, Ala.), W. E. B. DuBois (1868, 
Mass., Ga.), C W. Chesnutt (1858, N. C), and P. L. Dunbar 
(1872- 1908, Ohio). 



CHAPTER XVII 

SOCIAL FORCES 

The Fall of the Old Regime ; the South among 
THE Ruins; the Significance of Reconstruc- 
tion; A Change of Economic Base; the New 
Problems and their Critics — George Cable, 
Edgar Gardner Murphy, Thomas Nelson Page 
AND Others; Education in the South; Negro 
Leadership — Booker T. Washington, DuBois 
AND Others; the Results: the Economic, 
Social, and Political Status of the Negro; 
the Poor White; the Emigrant; Industrial- 
ism; Democratic Tendencies. 



The manner in which the South faced the future 
after the Civil War represents one of the highest ex- 
amples of idealism known to history. It was not an 
easy matter to hold in check a righteous indignation 
over the follies of Reconstruction, to be deprived of 
citizenship, and to be made subservient in many direc- 
tions to the freedman. Yet, through an epic will, the 
Confederate soldier went back to his home, — not to 
despair, though the seared trail of war met his view 
everywhere ; not to idleness, though he had been here- 
tofore unaccustomed to work in a general sense; not 
to lawlessness, though every means of self-govern- 
ment were removed from him; but to the resumption 
of the old responsibilities and to the assumption of 
new. 

Before the question of slavery was brought to a test 
417 



4i8 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of arms, the South reaHzed that the economic system 
was doomed to modification; it had been thrown in 
close contact with the negro for generations, and what- 
ever there was of latent good in the slave, a pater- 
nalistic care had developed. Better than anyone, the 
Southerner realized the dangers of sudden emancipa- 
tion and the consequences, the excesses which would 
follow under the mistaken rule of the Republican 
party. First of all, abolition was fanaticism., based on 
a broad ethical principle which had nothing to do with 
the actual negro as a factor in the community; the 
egregious blunders of Reconstruction measure the 
crass ignorance on the part of Congress regarding the 
status of the negro. So it was that, coupled with 
poverty and degradation, the Confederate veteran 
found a new burden on his shoulders ; he still was re- 
sponsible for the welfare of the negro, as much for 
his own protection as for the negro's good. 

Dr. Alderman's phrase, " The education of defeat," 
is the condensed history of Southern id^ealism. From 
the time that Lincoln's unconstitutional, IhougFTiuman, 
pronouncement set the slave free, the stricken section 
realized its obligations ; it knew the negro so well that 
it did not regard the removal of chains a menace, in- 
asmuch as the plantation system would serve to hold 
the freedman in check for the moment. But the fa- 
natic of the North was the South's chief menace. We 
do not claim that wisdom alone was to be found in 
the defeated section, but forbearance hid to a large 
extent the extreme bitterness which was felt toward 
the North at large. 

The tragedy of Lincoln's death brought dire mis- 
fortune to the South; had he lived, the re-establish- 
ment of the seceded States would have been accom- 
plished with little of the blindness and spleen of the 
victor; yet Congress proceeded to be blind, once it 
had successfully tied the hands of Johnson. It was 



THE NEW SOUTH 419 

the unwisdom of such men as Thaddeus Stevens, the 
mistaken observation of such pohticians as Carl 
Schurz, that v^ere responsible for most of the hysteri- 
cal legislation which thrust the negro into a superior 
civilization, recognizing his abstract right but not see- 
ing his utter unpreparedness for the privileges. 

Had the seceded States been allowed to return to the 
Union on their old basis, as Lincoln had planned, 
there would have been none of the dire friction which 
eventually, assumed a most aggravated form. But it 
required the clear vision of a Lincoln to master the 
situation; Johnson, perhaps sincere in maintaining the 
policy of the martyred President, did not possess his 
genius. The representatives in Congress were 
obsessed with the idea of protecting the political status 
of the negro, the unprincipled body of the Republican 
party using the freedman for personal ends. In the 
state of bitterness which existed, no acknowledgment 
was made of the South's right to maintain the ascend- 
ancy of the white over the black — a question during 
Reconstruction which was vitally important, especially 
in such a State as Mississippi, where the population 
was predominantly black. 

The time has now arrived in the study of history 
when we may weigh arguments dispassionately — even 
realizing some of that passion which was behind the 
acts of Reconstruction. We may follow the war and 
trace, step by step, the elements which changed the 
conception of government on both sides. Thus we may 
understand President Wilson's statement that the 
struggle " was a revolution of consciousness, — of mind 
and purpose. A government which had been in its 
spirit federal became, almost of a sudden, national in 
temper and point of view." This would betoken a 
modification of idea, not only in the South but in the 
North as well. For the despotic sway of a war party 
was not conducive to quick and easy adjustment. It 



420 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

was soon found that legislation would not affect the 
mental capacity of the freedman, though, in 1867, 
Congress overestimated that capacity. The amend- 
ments to the Constitution were passed as law, but the 
sovereign will of each one of the Southern States 
gradually blocked their effectiveness as the individual 
legislatures thought necessary, and to-day, in the prob- 
lems of population and in the distribution of repre- 
sentation the Inegro is still regarded as an uncertain 
factor in the political balance. This means that, in 
spite of education, in spite of the broadening of the 
iiegroes' economic capability, there is still discrimina- 
tion which goes deeper than a vote and becomes racial. 
The excesses of Reconstruction were products of fanat- 
icism; the Republican leaders showed no willing- 
ness to call into play the best spirit of the South, and 
here is where the historian judges Lincoln correctly 
when it is averred that he would have ranged himself on 
the side of the Democrats and Southern whites, by his 
firmness carrying with him the moderate Republicans. 
The ballot was the symbol of Congressional folly. And 
until the States, taken back into the Union, might exert 
their civil and sovereign power in the governing of 
their individual affairs, the South stood still, only re- 
sorting to secret organization for immediate protection, 
when irresponsibility threatened life and property. 
Then it was that the Ku Klux Klan worked silently, 
effectively, and sometimes, unfortunately, excessively. 
The whole situation was tragic. 

The nation, of which the South is part, is suffering 
to-day from the ills of Reconstruction ; though educa- 
tion in its various aspects is bringing forth the excel- 
lences of the fiegro, it is also showing his deficiencies 
of character — deficiencies which, according to Page, 
were only too seriously aggravated when he was 
widely proclaimed to be the ward of the nation. Be- 
cause of this idea, it was difBcult for Booker T. Wash- 




GEORGE W. CABLE. 
By courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sona. 



THE NEW SOUTH 421 

ington to establish his scheme for industrial training, 
where the one dominant factor is self-reliance ; because 
of this idea, DuBois has developed the irresponsible 
belief that negro education meant useless book- 
learning, into an idealism which is not thoroughly 
founded on mental fitness, but upon the negro's right, 
whether he deserves it or not. One has only to think 
of the terrible difficulties under which the South has 
labored, to understand why it has been retarded in its 
national outlook, why it has persisted in remaining 
" solid " in its political action. 

Yet, as we have said, the Confederate veteran stood 
by, practicing as much forbearance as the situation de- 
manded. Provisional governors were placed over him, 
illiterate negroes were given the franchise, while the 
"carpet-bagger" and the "scalawag" aided in this 
disintegrating policy. For forces were working to 
alienate the black from his very best friend, and to 
throw suspicion upon the white. The execution of law 
within the military districts which, between 1867 and 
1870, constituted the plan of reconstruction, was des- 
potic; the commander had absolute power, and the 
States were watched until the voters were willing to 
subscribe to all the conditions imposed by Congress — 
chiefly concerning the status of the negro. The South- 
ern States were playthings in the hands of tempera- 
ment; they were laid bare to the unscrupulousness of 
profit-hunters, who worked upon the negro's lust, even 
as they seized the negro's vote for personal ends. 

To add to these overbearing methods, which were 
largely in accord with Stevens' dealing with rebellion 
as a condition outside of constitutional consideration, 
the actual insignia of war was still retained in the 
South, as a menace and as token of aggressive disposi- 
tion. The presence of troops, the denial of represen- 
tation, the unstable authority of law, the establishment 
of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the amendment of the 



422 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

Constitution, were the trials to which the South was 
subjected, yet through it all there were efforts made 
to gain a steady footing, to take up the plow in the 
furrow and to develop the industrial resources of the 
land. The effect of reconstruction on the white was 
retarding ; the negroes were becoming more and more 
dissatisfied, since the Union "Loyal" League kept 
them stirred up with false hopes and promises. 

The Freedmen's Bureau was a constant reminder to 
the 'negro that he was a ward of the nation ; however 
unwise the ideas underlying its establishment. Gen- 
eral O. O. Howard was not to blame for the in- 
effectiveness of its organization in bringing about an 
adjustment of the negro's suffrage; the only positive 
worth it exhibited was in the matter of education, 
where it helped to familiarize the black population with 
the free school system. In his pessimistic manner, 
bordering on sullen aggressiveness, DuBois blames the 
Freedmen's Bureau for present disparities in the negro's 
position ; he discounts every act of forbearance on the 
part of the South; every legislative move, carried 
through the will of the Southern white vote^ to give 
the black man a fair chance; and, moreover, he 
wrongly attributes to the Freedmen's Bureau the rec- 
ognition in the South of free labor, whereby the negro 
might in the future become " peasant proprietor." In 
fact, however true DuBoIs' arguments proving the in- 
adequacy of the Freedmen's Bureau, his bitter criti- 
cism against the failure of the Government to give the 
negro a sustenance, which he was not willing to earn, 
only illustrates the evil effects of paternalism — even 
upon an exceptional black man, so far educated beyond 
the realization of his race needs that his criticism fails 
practically to aid in the immediate solution. Where 
the nation was culpable — if it is possible to consider 
Reconstruction as anything more than partisan war- 
fare — was in allowing the Freedmen's Savings Bank to 



THE NEW SOUTH 423 

dupe negro thrift in its incipiency — a, deception from 
which the black laborer recovered only after a long 
period of distrust. 

After all, the literary significance of Reconstruction 
is to be found in the special details which, on the one 
hand, indicate popular feeling, and, on the other, de- 
termine the special attitude of the leaders in negro 
thought. We shall find, in an examination of Wash- 
ington and DuBois, much data that bear upon church 
readjustment and education — ^these factors being the 
two points most concerned in the negro's qualifying 
for citizenship. In every recent development of the 
freedman, it is necessary to look into Reconstruction 
for the commencement of those determined campaigns 
which later permanently modified Southern popular 
opinion. 

The history of education in the South after the 
Civil War is far from being so discouraging as Du- 
Bois would have one believe. If the Southern whites 
objected to Reconstruction methods of instruction,, it 
was because the illiterate men, placed at the head of 
affairs, as well as such special institutions as the Freed- 
men's Bureau and the partisan Aid Societies, dis- 
tributed histories with a Northern bias, or else gave 
special fanatical orders to the teachers sent South on 
a definite narrow mission. School-books published in 
New York were for a long while held in distrust, and 
whenever possible were supplanted by texts edited with 
particular regard for the sensibilities of the South. 
Yet the freedmen's spirit permeated and persisted for 
some time in the South. 

For this reason, prejudice against negro education 
was difficult to circumvent. Nevertheless, the Southern 
people recognized the necessity for education of a cer- 
tain kind; it was the excesses to which the former 
slave went in his desire for "book-learning" that 
made the white of the South believe that, thus par- 



424 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tially educated, thus equipped with mental frills 
fitting" him for no useful position in the economic 
adjustment, which was the same as industrial recon- 
struction, the educated negro was a dangerous negro. 
In Dr. Fleming's poignant thesis on Alabama, there 
are a number of pictures sketched of the crass igno- 
rance of school officials regulating affairs. After all, the 
Southerners were themselves the ones to have been 
placed in local control by the Government ; it was use- 
less to expect a defeated community to send its sons 
to universities presided over by Northern preachers, 
arrogant and inimical. Such defiance only spurred the 
Ku Klux Klan to more frequent activity. In the re- 
sumption of duties, nevertheless, the South knew that 
education must be had, but not from the Northern 
teacher of the type common in those early days. 

How to solve that question was a paramount con- 
sideration ; in Alabama, for instance, some of the most 
prominent citizens recognized that if education were 
not given as an alternative for the opposing forces of 
slavery, the negro would quickly degenerate into his 
tribal habits. Col. Jeff Faulkner was strong in recom- 
mending negro education, and so that it would be of 
the proper sort, he advised Southern women to assume 
control. The Montgomery Advertiser, as early as 
July, 1866, went further, and suggested that disabled 
soldiers assume the task of teachers. 

In this unsettled state, the position of the negro was 
a tragic one ; he did not know the real meaning of his 
freedom ; he was far from able to think for himself. 
His emotional side prompted him to seek education so 
that he might read the Bible ; his new-made " friends," 
among assurances held forth to him, promised him 
that the three R's would give him quicker opportunity 
to become preacher, teacher, and representative in 
Congress. The presence of the Northern school teach- 
ers did not allay doubt and mistrust; no matter how 



THE NEW SOUTH 425 

earnest they might be, their ardor was misdirected be- 
cause of mistaken enthusiasm. In addition to this, 
they were not always of good character. But it made 
no difference to the Southern household what their 
social status was, the Northern teachers came on a 
footing of equality with the negro, and so they were 
ostracized by the whites. The result was that im- 
morality sprang into existence, and the Ku Klux Klan 
had added work to do, — warning in directions where 
irregular conduct between the two races became fre- 
quent. 

These were actual conditions, not false pictures for 
the sake of partisan malice; upon their existence de- 
veloped the popular feeling in the South. The de- 
feated section was overrun by forces which tried to 
disintegrate, of a sudden, the conservatism which ex- 
cluded the Northerner from the innermost circle where 
no war condition could ever enter. The Confederate 
kept his parole, even though he was dragged precipi- 
tately before commissions, and was called to answer 
questions for investigators whom he knew to be inim- 
ical to the best interests of the South. He moved 
within an atmosphere of constant threat, his 
very property remaining insecure; his word was 
discounted, when weighed with that of the " scala- 
wag '* who would have given his soul for the 
negro vote and for political preferment. Over 
and over again, he was called upon to take his 
oath of allegiance, and even that would not insure 
him from indignity. Worse still was the soldiers' 
willful insult of Southern women, forcing them 
from the sidewalk, jeering in their presence, and com- 
mitting petty^ annoyances in revenge for social ostra- 
cism which their acts only the more necessitated. 
Whatever the violations which later developed from 
the Ku Klux Klan, it will be seen that at times the 
secret orders had cause to act. The whole atmosphere 



426 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

was one of intense strain — a mixture of unreasonable- 
ness, sensitiveness, and forbearance. As one authority- 
has aptly said, condemn as you will the Ku Klux Klan 
for its lawlessness, when the time came to examine its 
leaders, the whole nature of the negro government — • 
its shameful mismanagement under "carpet-bag'* 
rule — did much to awaken the conscience of the best 
side of Northern life. Then began the undermining 
of Reconstruction methods. 



II 

No sooner was the war at an end than the South- 
erner became aware of his responsibility. Unlike the 
Northern theorist, who hoped by law to settle the prob- 
lem of race in a day, the former master knew that the 
forces were deeper than mere political adjustment; 
that an inferior race, living in the midst of a stronger 
group, would necessarily act as a counter-force if it 
were not made capable of meeting new conditions. Re- 
construction had, to an extent, cultivated in the South 
a feeling of distrust as regards the educated negro, 
but the high consciousness of the Southern people, — so 
well epitomized in the clear, philosophic view of Mr. 
Edgar Gardner Murphy,— began to unfold as early as 
1865 ; and now, education has become the key-note to 
Southern progress, as a means, not only of assuring 
the economic and social usefulness of the negro, but 
of checking whatever disintegrating forces were exist- 
ent among the whites at the close of the war. 

This sense of duty was a great factor in the re- 
establishment of life; the ||egro was made helpless 
by the sudden removal of slavery, and the burden, 
however heavy, must be met. The law, in its exercise, 
had to recognize the black man's right to its just 
enactment ; in all dealings with the negro, the economic 
basis was different — there must be fair relation between 
the races, even though, by the removal of the bonds, a 



THE NEW SOUTH 427 

greater chasm was made for the surer protection of 
the whites. The problem demanded the proof of good 
faith; it emphasized the hope that by his labor the 
negro would assure for himself his economic position. 
From 1865 to 1870, there was a keen willingness on 
the part of Southern people to forward the situation; 
Northern zealots set back the impulse for an im- 
mediate facing of facts, yet they could not entirely 
destroy, even though they did delay, such catholic 
sentiments as Judge Clayton of Alabama expressed, 
when charging a jury in September, 1866; he was 
shortly after disfranchised and kept from office until 
1874. 

It is therefore evident that among the largest 
social forces which are most active in the South to- 
day, the education of the negro and of the poor white 
demands most careful examination. Perhaps the 
consideration of illiteracy, until very recent years, has 
wrongly been confined to the black man ; philanthropy 
has been turned in that direction, as the consequence 
of an over-sentimental attitude toward the negro. But 
now the South's fight against illiteracy is a general 
struggle for the good of society, and, as the years 
advance, and the national view becomes more evident 
to the whole people of the United States, the check- 
ing of illiteracy is not only a necessity to the section, 
but the obligation becomes greater and affects the 
nation as a whole. 

The Peabody Education Fund was managed in that 
spirit from the beginning; the South was selected as 
the field most urgently needful of support when, on 
October 3, 1866, the ^eat Baltimore philanthropist 
conceived his scheme. It was no sectional or conde- 
scending spirit which prompted Peabody; he had 
toured the South in 1857; his first milHon dol- 
lars was handed to a board "for the promotion and 
encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial 
education among the young of the more destitute por- 



428 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tion of the Southern and Southwestern States of our 
Union." When his second donation was bestowed in 
1869, he wrote that it was offered "to the suffering 
South for the good of the whole country." Dr. Barnas 
Sears (1802- 1880), of Brown University, was elected 
first agent of the Fund. 

In 1869, Sears wrote from New Orleans: 
" I will now state our position, which is perfectly 
well known. . . . We assume no control whatever 
over the arrangement of the schools to which assistance 
is accorded. We have nothing to do with any party 
questions or with the policy pursued by municipal or 
State authorities. We only wish to aid in the work of 
universal education. If separate schools are provided 
for the two races, and both of them are pleased with 
the arrangement, we can have no embarrassment in 
co-operating with the State authorities. If the law 
requires mixed schools, and the children, whether 
white or black, generally attend them, we shall have 
no difficulty in our work. But if the State supports 
only mixed schools, and the white children do not 
attend them, we should naturally aid, not the colored 
children, who enjoy, exclusively, the benefit of the pub- 
lic school money, but the white children who are left 
to grow up in ignorance. If it be said that the white 
children ought to attend the mixed schools, and that 
it is their own fault, or that of their parents, if they 
do not, we reply that we are not called on to pronounce 
judgment on that subject. Let the people themselves 
settle that question. . . . Our proper business is to 
encourage universal education ; not to meddle with any 
party question, nor to encourage or discourage any 
political body." 

Such a report presaged the results of a fair-minded 
investigation ; Sears transferred his citizenship to Vir- 
ginia, and his far-seeing wisdom saved the Fund from 
the schemes of individuals, denominations and private 




THOMAS NELSON PAGE. 
By courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE NEW SOUTH 429 

corporations; his aim was civic in its widest sense. 
This is all the more remarkable since he was a theolo- 
gian of New England training. 

The common school was now furthered to a re- 
markable degree. Such unthinking enthusiasts as Mr. 
Cable, two decades later, might resent the line of dis- 
tinction drawn in the South between whites and blacks, 
the marks of discrimination in the ordinary affairs of 
the street ; but the Peabody Board, in the midst of Re- 
construction evils, was sufficiently profound in wisdom 
and sane in policy to labor in the Southern States, 
along lines " adapted to their peculiar condition of in- 
habitancy by two races, distinct in origin, color, his- 
tory, separated by an impassable chasm, and yet pre- 
destined to continue joint occupancy of the same ter- 
ritory." No matter how unbiased Sears* intentions to 
act fairly, he was questioned and doubted and sub- 
jected to open attack from Sumner and Garrison, who 
accused him of Southern partiality. The whole matter 
culminated in the question of mixed schools which had 
been forced upon Louisiana and South Carolina — a 
question which, had it been successfully legislated in 
Congress, would have dealt an overpowering blow to 
the cause of common school education in the South. 

When Sears died, in 1880, his daughter continued 
his activity until the meeting of the Board ; then, dur- 
ing February, 1881, J. L. M. Curry received the 
appointment of general agent, and he developed the 
work, until his death in 1903. In his writing and in 
his speeches, which were delivered before so many 
legislatures, Curry insisted upon the idea of connect- 
ing education with the development of Southern indus- 
tries ; through prosperity comes the natural desire for 
learning, and the healthy willing support of schools 
is dependent upon the general social and economic 
welfare. This emphasis only served to bring into 
more prominence the recognized intention of the Pea- 



430 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

body Fund to offer special encouragement to Normal 
institutions, and to pay special attention to the pro- 
fessional training" of teachers. Thus, Booker T. 
Washington's endeavors had other precedence than 
General Armstrong and the Hampton Institute. 

Political discrimination was often attempted during 
the development of the common school idea, but when 
put to the Supreme Court test, it did not long stand 
the force of argument. Had the burden of taxation 
fallen on each class educated, and limited in its appor- 
tionment to that discrimination, the negro would have 
fared ill. But the Southern whites have borne the ad- 
ditional expense, knowing that otherwise the problem 
would never be solved. 

A wave of philanthropy passed over the country, 
not always wise in its bestowal, but nevertheless in- 
dicative of a right and worthy impulse. In 1882, 
John F. Slater bequeathed one million dollars for the 
special benefit of negroes, a fund duplicated in 1908 
by Miss Anna T. Jeanes, who at several times had 
assisted Frissell of Hampton and Washington of 
Tuskegee, and who, by her larger act, indicated her 
special interest in the negro rural school. The ex- 
ample of Peabody, likewise, inspired the generosity of 
Tulane, who in New Orleans gave money for intellect- 
ual, moral, and industrial education, — ^Anthony J. 
Drexel doing the same in Philadelphia. 

It is necessary thus to emphasize the educational 
regeneration of the South, since it will be seen that 
at the present time some of the most significant writ- 
ing is being done along the lines here indicated. 
Founded upon a social obligation, it has called into 
play some of the keenest thinking, and, by its general 
acceptance, it is clearly indicative of the democratiza- 
tion of the Southern people, and of their broader point 
of view. Yet, to a certain extent, the practical necessi- 
ties of education have limited Southern thought as 



THE NEW SOUTH 431 

severely as the consideration of slavery did before it. 
No atmosphere has been created for the encourage- 
ment of pure imagination, but all energy is being cen- 
tered upon self-examination. This, in a way, is aiding 
in that great change through which the South has 
to go as it passes from an agricultural to a manufac- 
turing people, and is developing a critical sense out 
of which future virility and originality may come. 

There is no great writing being done in the South 
to-day, no exceptional literature. From such a state- 
ment we have no right to believe that what is being done 
is not as excellent as the average elsewhere, and equally 
as holding in its general interest. The sense of local- 
ity, the new historic impulse, and the style of psycho- 
logical analysis, have made the fiction less broadly hu- 
morous, and less melodramatic. But the demands 
upon the Southerner's ingenuity have been practical in 
meeting immediate issues, and though^ since 1901, 
when the Southern Education Board was founded, 
with the energy and interest of Robert C. Ogden be- 
hind it, the conferences have been concerned with 
social and economic investigations, the spirit has been 
actuated by the highest ideals and by broad-minded- 
ness. The quality of social criticism, therefore, will 
be found to be of exceptional constructive force; if it 
has not the wide appeal it should have, the reason may 
be found in the fact that as yet sociology is not of gen- 
eral educational interest in the South. Curry's popu- 
larity was due very largely to the manner of his ex- 
position, for he resorted to the orator's method ; many 
more people were willing to listen to him than to read 
him. 

The negro question and the problem of education 
are relative considerations; what is written to-day is 
subject to change to-morrow; the body of literature 
which has grown up around it, is never constant; in 
the bulk it is indicative of a stage in the solution. 



432 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

No book, no law will bring the adjustment about; the 
matter lies wholly in the temper and character of the 
people, being slowly but surely modified by condition. 
Perhaps the acutest position of the white argument is 
to be had in Mr. Murphy, though his philosophic view 
restricts his wide appeal. The contributions made by 
the negro are significant as showing three tendencies 
of thought, but in none of them do we obtain the right 
ideal of leadership or of citizenship. So persistent 
has been the emphasis upon the white man's obligation 
to the negro, that the negro has not yet become aware 
of how great an obligation he owes to a superior race, 
which is expending so much of energy and substance 
for the benefit oi all concerned. 



Ill 

Curry (1825-1903), when he succeeded Haygood 
as general agent for the Slater Fund, was largely in- 
strumental in developing the national view of the 
negro question. Ever since his first endeavors in 1865, 
the whole gravity of the situation has been in the 
matter of adjustment, of assuaging that irritant to- 
ward race antagonism which is found in the close 
association of two distinct peoples, whose integrity 
must be maintained if each is to exist and increase in 
betterment. What is now necessary is to destroy 
race prejudice by increasing the efficiency of the 
weaker, by establishing it upon sound economic foot- 
ing, by developing its own responsibility in the matter 
of law and order, by allowing it a share in those civic 
activities which conduce to the maintenance of that 
law and order, by making it aware of an ideal of man- 
hood among its kind which need not go outside the 
race for its highest development, and by condemning 
its members for those moral lapses which are due to 
innate weakness as well as to conditions which sur- 



THE NEW SOUTH 433 

round them. With Mr. Murphy, we believe that 
Professor Royce, in his book on " Race Questions," 
falsely estimated the South's position in this matter 
of race prejudice; it is not founded upon superficial 
antipathies, nor yet upon inherited beliefs, but upon 
fundamental structural difference underlying the 
whole theory of evolution and the survival of stronger 
elements. It is this acknowledgment which makes 
Mr. Murphy's " The Basis of Ascendancy " so poig- 
nant for the present generation of social students. 

One does not have to wait for a new census to speak 
in general terms of the advance of free schools and 
universal education in the South ; but there is no doubt 
that the new statistics will convey a significant mes- 
sage regarding the decrease of illiteracy among blacks 
and whites in the Southern States. The measure in 
round numbers of the improved condition will denote 
the force of moral enthusiasm with which the people 
have faced the problem. Save for the three years that 
Curry was in Spain (when Samuel A. Green took his 
place, 1885-1888), he had an uninterrupted oppor- 
tunity of noting how the deluding promises offered 
the emancipated blacks were shifted from useless 
knowledge to serviceable training which fitted their 
special needs. He saw the New South rise out of the 
ruins, and pass through exacting times, and while in 
his fairness of view he recognized that " no Mason and 
Dixon's line runs through the individual or the aggre- 
gate human mind of this country," he saw also that 
education must be fitted to aptitude, and that the cul- 
tural phase could not be ushered in until the soil was 
prepared for it. 

Curry's earliest criticism was that in the South there 
was not " a proper appreciation of the science of edu- 
cation ''; what was to be greatly desired was the re- 
moval of pedagogy from the directive influence of the 
popular vote. But though it was generally conceded 



434 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

by Curry that the Government should render assist- 
ance, it was soon recognized that each State should 
meet its own situation. Public opinion had to be roused, 
prejudices had to be overcome. History records how 
much self-sacrifice was shown by the States, even 
though it was felt that it would take more than the 
South could give for counteracting conditions. 

The wisdom of men like Curry counted for much 
at such a special time as that of which we write; they 
saw what the real, deep menace to the future of the 
South really was; they saw the negro's dire lack of 
industrial preparation, and they discouraged other 
remedies. They saw how wanting the black race was 
in permanent character, and so they believed that 
until this was acquired, liberty should be restricted. 

For the cause, Curry devoted a large part of his 
life, and when he died the press rightly called his 
labors a national service. The broad view of training 
for the most efficient citizenship was uppermost in 
Curry's thoughts; he gave no attention to personal 
benefit when he worked — his eye was upon the greatest 
good for the greatest numbers. Dr. Alderman points 
to such dedication as an example of " unpurchasable " 
zeal which the South exerted whenever national ques- 
tions were offered for solution. And so we realize 
what Curry's energy meant in the extension of the 
South's destiny, when we hear Alderman say : " The 
chief work then of this noble life was to develop an 
irresistible public opinion in a democracy for the 
accomplishment of permanent public ends. In short, 
through such work as his in one generation of grim 
purpose and intellectual audacity, the South has lost 
its economic distinctness and has become a part of 
American life and American destiny." Through him 
we fully understand what initiative will do in establish- 
ing permanent good. 

If we take such a book as Mr. Cable's " The Silent 



THE NEW SOUTH 435 

South," and recollect that, when it was written in 1885, 
the negro question in its newer aspects had scarcely 
been discussed, it is evident how quickly and bitterly 
he might be rated by the Southern people. But his 
own personal indignation over the treatment of the 
negro is not the matter most to be condemned ; it is his 
manner of approach on one hand, and his blindness on 
the other, to the needs of the situation as it then pre- 
sented itself. The promises held forth by the amend- 
ments to the Constitution were just as illusive as the 
general assertions uttered in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; human equity should always be practiced to- 
ward the negro, but he should be prepared for the 
proper enjoyment of those privileges which freedom be- 
stows on the individual. The negro had to prove him- 
self part of the new regime, and with the aid of the 
white man he was to raise himself above and beyond 
that alien position where he was marked by his color, 
and where his inferiority was made more evident by 
his incapacity in the civic body. 

True that the white man had to be schooled into 
the acceptance of this new order of things,- The dis- 
cussion of liberty in the abstract is far different from 
its bestowal in the concrete, and to reverse the feelings 
of human nature takes long years of experience. It is 
this experience which separates the scattered half- 
truths of the zealous Mr. Cable from Mr. Murphy's 
whole truths in " The Present South," one of the most 
fair-minded expositions of the ways and means in 
the South. Its statistics may vary, but the inspira- 
tion is sound and does historic justice to the subject. 

Mr. Cable rightly affirmed that slavery bestowed 
upon the negro sufficient civilization to make him 
worthy of freedom, but he was wrong in arguing that 
any act of freedom could ever recognize that all are 
equally entitled to that freedom. The South has com- 
mitted errors against the negro in the courts, but the 



436 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

better thought in the South has attempted to alter 
those inequahties which are unfair to the negro, when- 
ever he proves by his moral and practical stability that 
he is worthy of the law's full protection. Public priv- 
ilege suddenly poured upon the negro was not what 
was wanted at the time Mr. Cable wrote, though in 
his demand for this recognition he was tainted by the 
abolition spirit which sought immediate results, no 
matter what the conditions. No doubt the South has 
suffered in moral sensibility through the very slowness 
with which it has come to grant negroes the privileges 
of the freedman. But race instinct is not " twaddle '* 
when it involves the preservation of race individuality, 
and, as Mr. Harben tries to prove in " The Georgians," 
no solution will ever be reached where the relinquish- 
ment of that integrity is demanded. 

Mr. Cable's arguments are written from a North- 
ampton, Massachusetts, point of view; they contain 
truths, but not truth based on the recognition of de- 
fects on both sides of the dividing line. The white 
man is now awake to the necessity for bestowing civil 
rights fairly, but he still holds to that social right 
which is the individual right as well. In a futile at- 
tempt to keep these two considerations separate, Mr. 
Cable involved them in an argument based on general 
statements rather than on close examination; he was 
at the time of writing possessed of the one idea of in- 
termingling the races in the daily conduct of affairs, as 
though civil liberty could not exist without that. But 
Mr. Cable scarcely touched upon the fitness of the 
negroes for all those privileges he would bestow on 
them. He was on much more tenable ground when 
he argued against the Convict Lease System. 

Such a man as Edgar Gardner Murphy represents 
a different spirit — one to reflect abiding credit on the 
South. For he is fearless in his examination of causes 
and effects ; he maintains an equal balance between his- 




From Stereograph, copyright 1".X)6, by Underwood & Underwood, X. Y. 



JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. 

Photographed in his home in West End, Atlanta, Ga., at the age of fifty-eight. According 
toth-eold custom still existing among many Southern farmers, Mr. Harris always wears liis hat 
in the house. 



THE NEW SOUTH 437 

tory and the moment ; he measures statistics by human 
standards, beUeving that a civiHzation not only has an 
outward existence expressed by a formula, but an in- 
ward basis which governs numbers. His is, conscien- 
tiously and consistently, a national view, reached 
through acceptance of much that has been created by 
sectional bequeathment. He is as philosophical in his 
arguments respecting the differences between the con- 
cepts of Nation and of Federal Government, as Jeffer- 
son was in his discussion of the functions of the State. 
Mr. Murphy has always stood for the inviolable right 
of the State to develop citizenship for the good of the 
nation ; he has always believed Federal legislation to be 
operative in those relationships which went outside the 
borders of the separate States. His whole argument 
for State regulation of child labor, when Beveridge 
of Indiana sought for Federal control, was based on 
his belief in the obligation of the State in the task 
of enriching the concept of national existence. What- 
ever his consideration, Mr. Murphy's ultimate argu- 
ment is for full meeting of the problem of "unde- 
veloped citizenship." And we find him saying : " Edu- 
cation, all education, is but philanthropy; and philan- 
thropy is but humanity believing in itself and in its 
God." 

"The Present South," in its statistical phase, will 
have to be read anew after the issue of the census of 
19 10; but this will not any the more take from it the 
just expression of how much constructive energy the 
South has been exerting. The census will indicate the 
fruits of a labor which have largely been cultivated by 
such earnestness as Mr. Murphy has displayed in his 
books. Not only that, but the optimism which Mr. 
Murphy has expressed in the face of counter elements, 
is only another manifestation of the ideahsm which in 
the South is reaping practical results. For the " igno- 
rant and ineffective life " is dangerous in two direc- 



438 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tions; locally It stunts development of the immediate 
social group, nationally it retards the full expression 
of manhood. Therefore, when we discuss Culture and 
Democracy, it is, according to Mr. Murphy, the 
stronger race which must improve the undeveloped 
forces of its kind. " The Present South " soundly 
develops the conviction that the negro problem is but 
one among other important phases of Southern life 
— a life in which the white man is the dominant fac- 
tor. 

There is logical development to Mr. Murphy's 
thought; "The Basis of Ascendancy" is a natural 
outcome of a practical discussion of conditions; we 
obtain an eloquent exposition of those subtle inter- 
relations which, civically acting together, seem, to raise 
both races at the same time, for the safety of the 
stronger. The South no longer believes in repression, 
nor in the inability of the negro to realize himself. 
Such a work as '^ The Basis of Ascendancy " needs 
acute analysis; it suggests a wide field of serviceable 
speculation, based upon full understanding of social, 
political and economic conditions. 

Nevertheless, this maintaining of the ascendancy 
is not a passive matter ; while it recognizes the superi- 
ority of the white race in the matter of self-develop- 
ment, the matter of color alone will not save it from 
deterioration if dead weight is allowed to increase, if 
it is not constantly reinforced by new blood such as 
is to be found in the mountain regions among the 
poor whites. Mr. Walter H. Page, a North Caro- 
linian by birth, has done much in writing and in ad- 
dresses to inculcate a belief in this necessity, and the 
sum total of his arguments is expressed in such terse 
conviction as that "the security and the soundness of 
the whole body are measured at last by the condition 
of its weakest part." Social progress depends upon 
the efficient manner in which the latter defect is 



THE NEW SOUTH 439 

overcome; the perpetuation of democracy depends 
upon the obliteration of the idea that education is a 
class privilege. The hopeless condition, dominant at 
first, was not the presence of illiteracy, but the absence 
of any recognition among the majority that literacy 
was the one and only solution to the social and eco- 
nomic evolution which was being effected. 

Mr. Page's persistency in dwelling upon such mat- 
ters in his " The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths " 
has done its share in shaping the new public opinion 
which now has to be recognized — since it was hardly 
ever reckoned before — as a factor in the mental char- 
acter of the Southern people. The democratic spirit 
is an enemy to the aloofness of the poor white, to 
his inadequate home, to his inability to read or write, 
and to that religious superstition which, as Mr. Page 
has indicated, keeps the poor white woman in dull con- 
tentment with her lot. 

The point of view emphasized by such Southern 
writers as the editor of The World's Work is one 
wholly dependent upon the democratic idea ; it had to 
follow logically the failure on the part of the aristoc- 
racy and the church in the South to bestow an even 
distribution of advantages over the land. This does 
not mean that these two channels failed in what they 
did, but their full efficiency was handicapped by the 
very nature of their being. They misinterpreted the 
condition of the poor, failing to see that their status was 
economic and not due to mental inability. It was the 
public school development in the South which re-es- 
tablished the poor white, and assured the heritage of 
future generations. 

The presence of popular education in the South in- 
dicates something more than the mere opportunity 
afforded the child of every class to be educated; it 
stands also for the presence among the whole people 
of a desire for that broader culture of which the 



440 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

high school, university, and hbrary are the symbols. 
It is the whole community that has to be trained— 
in body, mind, and the use of the hand. 

This social evolution is, nevertheless, materially af- 
fecting those elements bequeathed the New South out 
of the Old, which were most attractive and most bene- 
ficial to its social order. In one way this will enrich 
the South, for it will serve to keep at home those 
vigorous men who, as Mr. Page points out, emigrate 
North in order to escape the stagnating elements in 
Southern life. Such a state of affairs is serious; it 
means that as yet there are not offered to the Southern 
man by Southern institutions those broadening prin- 
ciples of education which the Northern universities 
afford, and afterwards no wide channels are opened 
for the full practice of those principles. Even though 
Mr. Page questions the democratization of the South- 
ern population, he nevertheless unfailingly recognizes 
the two great constructive forces active to-day through 
the presence of education and industrialism. De- 
mocracy is dependent upon an even diffusion of these 
constructive forces. 

If Mr. Page's issue of The World's Work for June, 
1907, devoted to " The Advancing South,'' gave no 
other than this one impression of the growth in in- 
dustrialism, it would at least have rightly measured 
one of the chief concerns of the South to-day. North- 
ern capital has helped to open a large part of the ter- 
ritory which slavery had made slothful through a mis- 
taken estimate of labor. The wrong emphasis, how- 
ever, in the investigations of Mr. Page and his editor- 
ial staff, was placed upon the power of investments 
from the outside to awaken a progressive sentiment 
among the people. For the South has helped itself 
quite as much as it has been helped, and has by its 
own efforts risen from the ruins of past issues. 

A people may not be persuaded upon any other 



THE NEW SOUTH 441 

terms than conviction that the change is bettering the 
economic condition and strengthening the social Hfe. 
The recognition of the poor whites Is making less 
uncertain their attitude toward the negro, for the edu- 
cation of the former, — whose pride and lawlessness 
have largely overflowed in the mob spirit — is helping 
to create a better understanding of the latter. ' The 
poor white needs the restraint of culture quite as 
much as the rudiments of learning, even though he 
must have the rudiments first. For the body politic de- 
mands that the citizen be able to vote intelligently; 
that he be able as quickly as possible to rise above 
the plane of a mere tool of the unscrupulous. As early 
as 1880, the South recognized that illiteracy at the 
polls was a menace to free government. 

In all directions, therefore, the partial remedy for 
the Southern problem was to be found in the proper 
development of the individual. Curry was right in 
claiming that in the 90's there was too much belief 
in the power of legislatures to meet the conditions 
of a labor which slavery had made " ignorant, com- 
pulsory, and uninventive." The channel of correction 
was that of Intelligent labor, which would not only 
increase the capacity of production, but would raise 
the workingman by raising the character and grade 
of his work. 

The situation will not be bettered by examination 
from the outside; such English writers as William 
Archer and H. G. Wells only express in epitome what 
they hear and view on the surface; they seek for di- 
verse opinions, and from them draw conclusions which 
are well-meant, but which are not In any way con- 
structive. While such a volume as Ray Stannard 
Baker^s " Following the Color-Line " is in some re- 
spects as sensational and as unhealthy as Dixon's 
" The Clansman," it nevertheless has the recommenda- 
tion of being reportorially alive, however gullible the 



442 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

author may have been in the acceptance of his material. 
Mr. Baker did not travel South in the historical spirit 
of Olmsted, whose casual observation was quick, but 
with the newspaper purpose of showing the forces 
against which the negro has to contend in the South. 
There was much for him to see, for his book was being 
prepared at the time of the Atlanta Race Riot of Sep- 
tember, 1906, when he had an excellent opportunity of 
estimating the conduct of a Southern political cam- 
paign, the labor question, the trend of worthless ne- 
groes toward the city, the increase of crime, and the 
ineffectual power of the police. 

It is unfortunate that Mr. Baker's book was not 
more soundly conceived, for in many respects it is 
significantly interesting; but any book based on 
exceptional cases is not trustworthy as a measure of 
general condition, any more than is the quotation 
made by him from Mr. G. F. Mertin's novel, "The 
Storm-Signal," regarding the race problem, indicative 
of the best thought of the South; in fact, it is false 
logic and unwise art. 

It may well be asked, in view of the color-line de- 
markations which enter into all the problems in the 
South, both economic and social, what is the intelli- 
gent negro attitude on the subject? For undoubtedly 
discrimination became more apparent after the re- 
moval of slavery, and Mr. Baker is not the only popu- 
lar critic who attributes the negro's ceasing to smg 
to his realization of the color-line. Mention has al- 
ready been made of the three positions of the negro 
toward the problem; basically they differ, nor do 
they offer any hope for the immediate betterment of 
the negro's sense of responsibility, no matter to what 
degree he may be educated. 

Yet, with such a man as Booker T. Washington 
exerting a practical leadership, the condition is not 
hopeless. Considering the Reconstruction demands 



THE NEW SOUTH 443 

of others for the negro, he represents a compromise 
stand, and because of this, he has been regarded as a 
traitor to the cause by such men as DuBois, who con- 
demns concession, and would surrender the idea of 
adjustment rather than reHnquish one iota of the 
negro's right to civil and political equality. By Sep- 
tember 18, 1895, when the Atlanta Cotton States and 
International Exposition was opened, Washington was 
well-grounded in his belief that the negro would 
sooner reach civilization through understanding the 
difference between being worked and working, than 
be trained in knowledge that could not " be harnessed 
to the things of real life." For the first time in the 
South, a negro sat upon the same platform with the 
whites, after a distinctive struggle up from slavery, 
picturesquely, if not remarkably, described in his books 
and articles. Washington's style is on the whole 
plain and direct, with a tendency to occasional aphor- 
ism ; its humor is not dominant, though it comes in set 
form, and it is largely devoid of imaginative quality. 
Nor has it the poetry or eloquence or color of DuBois' 
English. In content, it is based on experience through 
which he has passed, and Tuskegee embodies that 
which he most needed in the beginning of his career. 
" I would not confine the race to industrial life," he 
once wrote, "but I would teach the race that in in- 
dustry the foundation must be laid." 

Through his own efforts and attainments, Washing- 
ton knew that industrial training was only a means 
toward an end; that it would not debar the negro 
from higher attainments, provided there was that in 
the negro to produce the highest work. But in the 
face of the economic improvement of the negro, there 
are three difficulties in the way, which would make 
us doubt the outcome of the problem: the negro is 
not adding to the creative output of the South, or, for 
that matter, of the nation; mere book-learning is not 



444 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

enriching his ethical duties as a citizen; mere indus- 
trial training, which leads to his economic efficiency, 
is not developing his initiative or his sense of responsi- 
bility. Washington's cry is : " Our pathway must 
be up through the soil, up through swamps, up through 
forests, up through the streams, the rocks, up through 
commerce, education, and religion." But he does not 
satisfactorily indicate the goal. 

" Up from Slavery " is a remarkably human docu- 
ment ; it is full of the strength of personal achievement, 
of exceptional will-power. Had there been no Hamp- 
ton Institute, to which Washington went in 1872, re- 
maining three years, and had there been no inspira- 
tional guidance of such a practical worker in the cause 
of the negro as General Samuel C. Armstrong, there 
would have been no Tuskegee in 188 1. It is not 
within our scope to analyze the work of negro educa- 
tion in the South; it was no easy matter for Wash- 
ington to overcome the obstacles of poverty and preju- 
dice, not among the better classes, but in those cabins 
where one fork and a sixty-dollar organ showed the 
conflicting ideas of life in its most thriftless state. 
The interesting point to recollect is that Washington 
was called to Tuskegee through popular demand for 
education, though the current of opposition toward 
industrial training was strong. 

DuBois' grievance against Washington was aimed 
at the sentence in the latter's Atlanta address, which 
ran : *' In all things purely social we can be as sepa- 
rate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in 
all things essential to mutual progress." But if Du- 
Bois claims that, in the persistency of his industrial 
attitude, Washington is underestimating the higher 
aims of life for the negro, it is well to demand of 
DuBois some other than the aggressive and pessimis- 
tic tone which dominates his book, "The Souls of 
Black Folk." There is no desire, as far as we can 




(^ (!AmiU$ Solvit tioAjUntk \ 



By courtesy of Houghton Mifllin Company. 



THE NEW SOUTH 445 

see, on the part of Washington, to shift the burden 
wholly upon the shoulders of the negro, but, in his 
determination to make the burden rest on the nation, 
there is hardly any effort on DuBois' part to see 
whether the negro is in fit condition to carry the 
weight, were it put upon him, and were the Southern 
whites willing to relinquish their responsibility. There 
is no such thing in DuBois as compromise toward the 
whites, however much the latter might compromise 
toward the blacks. He has misinterpreted the spirit 
of Washington's "compromise," for never once did 
the latter, in his arguments, relinquish the ideas of 
political power, of civil rights, of higher education for 
his race; he saw that it was futile to insist upon 
that for which the negro was not adequately prepared. 
None of these factors was to be obliterated in the 
scheme for adjustment, nor in any momentary post- 
ponement were there to be found the causes of dis- 
franchisement and of civil discrimination which Du- 
Bois believes. 

The whole matter is, that there are rifts of incon- 
sistency in the policy on both sides. In his books we 
find DuBois arguing for higher education on the sup- 
position that the negro race is to be saved by its ex- 
ceptional men, by its " Talented Tenth," who in their 
rise will carry their brothers with them. Mr. Mur- 
phy's view is different, inasmuch as he believes that 
emancipation allowed the exceptional to rise and the 
average to fall, — conditions which in both directions 
were held in restraint. There is some wisdom in Du- 
Bois' claim that the college-bred negro must become 
a group leader and take the same position among his 
people as the preacher ; nevertheless, in his claims for 
the college above the normal training school, DuBois 
takes for granted a state of mental and moral attain- 
ment far above the negro. " I insist," he writes, " that 
the object of all true education is not to make men 



446 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

carpenters, it is to make carpenters men " ; yet the first 
premise presupposes moral accountability; and the 
second premise, which he advocates, recognizes the pre- 
existence of the very training which to him is second- 
ary. Even in his belief — which no one will dispute, — 
that the effectiveness of negro education depends upon 
the effective teacher, he does not greatly strengthen 
his position, since no teacher, however well trained, 
will prove effective who does not realize the needs of 
the average, and meet the situation with essentials. 

Yet there are positive results from this extensive 
educational activity. We have passed the sentimental 
stage in the work; we are now taking stock, and we 
find how greatly the percentage of illiteracy is being re- 
duced ; how well literacy is finding proper channels in 
Southern civilization for the artisan, the agricultural 
laborer, the renter, the landowner, the mechanic, the 
business man, and the professional man. In many 
ways, provided the average negro continues normally 
in his development, his economic position is assured 
for the future, despite the talk about emigration. For 
it is well taken that in the South the negro has many 
channels open for earning his living which are denied 
him in the North. It is the glamour of social privilege 
which brings the negro North and gives him little 
permanent benefit in return for what he relinquishes 
by the move. For, as a matter of fact, the color-line 
there is more severely drawn, especially in those direc- 
tions based on economic privilege. Nowhere in the 
South has the negro been denied a right to earn his 
living, but he is faring ill in competition with the emi- 
grant class in the North. 

The establishment of the negro home is one of the 
hopeful signs of the day; if this is properly main- 
tained, there is none of DuBois' fear that industrial- 
ism will woo the black man from righteousness. But, 
as Mr. Thomas Nelson Page argues in his popular 



THE NEW SOUTH 447 

treatise on the negro, the negro workman has in many 
respects retrograded, his skill has been diffused over 
too wide an area for his ability to compass. While 
such negro universities as Fisk, Atlanta, Howard, 
Hampton, Shaw, Wilberforce, and Leland, are doing 
their share — Atlanta especially, where DuBois' mono- 
graphs on the social condition of the negro are filling 
a great need — the problem is still a grave one, far 
from solution as yet. But whatever his progress, his 
improved methods as a farmer, as a business man, and 
as a citizen, are encouraging. Though he shows a 
slow and sullen response to moral appeal, there is 
something to say against a certain class of white in the 
South, which, not expecting the black to be moral, 
fails to practice morality on its part. Such an at- 
mosphere is not conducive to the healthiest conditions. 
The increase of the mulatto is significant and a 
menace ! 

The writing which has been done in the South on 
social topics has brought more clearly into view the 
fact that the most disquieting element in the problem 
now in evolution is the suffrage question; for long 
after the constitutional amendments were accepted by 
the seceded States, each State in turn proceeded (be- 
ginning in 1890) to limit the franchise according to 
local need and sentiment. Yet here again, when we 
compare the saneness of white thought as represented 
by Mr. Murphy's views on the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, with the negro attitude as represented by the 
aggressiveness of Charles W. Chesnutt, who has writ- 
ten on " Disfranchisement," we shall see how much 
more of a force the white man is in developing those 
constructive elements which are the life of the South. 
For the negro is still demanding what the abolitionist 
wanted him to have, and has not taken advantage of 
the calm, scholarly examination of the real status, 
which has proven that suffrage cannot be established 



448 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

by law, but by fitness alone. The South does not 
deny that the constitutional amendments are not being 
upheld, nor does the South refuse the ballot to 
anyone; it simply withholds the privilege by require- 
ments which fall within the limits of every citizen to 
meet. Really, what is being done in the South is, not 
to suppress the negro, but to raise the value of the 
vote. If Congressional representation were threatened, 
then the South would unhesitatingly withdraw the 
suffrage restrictions, and the illiterate man would be 
of just as great value, numerically, as the one ade- 
quately educated. Such a move would only invite 
the practice of corruption. American civic strength 
depends upon the quality of the vote and not upon the 
quantity. It is a right to be earned by all men, irre- 
spective of color, and the South is conscious of this 
fact. 

The constructive energy, therefore, is being em- 
ployed very largely in the type of literature which has 
bearing on broad social and economic questions. To 
a certain degree this has added to the point of view 
possessed by the Southern novelist. But it takes a 
period of self-examination and of self-criticism to 
attach a literature to the soil, and, as yet, the Southern 
writer is loath to let the old civilization go. Even 
the negro has not yet ventured to treat of his kind in 
their modern state ; he resorts to folk-lore, to obsolete 
superstitions, to picturesque barbarities, and the eco- 
nomic negro has still to enter literature in other guise 
than as a slave. More than ever do we recognize that 
at the present time the social forces in Southern life 
are greater than the literature, but there is a cultural 
awakening at hand which already gives indication of 
a noteworthy literary renaissance. 



CHAPTER' XVIII 

THE NEW SOUTH 

Social Justice and the Law; the Historic 
Sense; Evidences of a Cultural Initiative; 
Creole Culture; Mountain Culture; Folk- 
SoNG AND Folk-Lore; the Negro in Litera- 
ture; THE Novelists of Locality; the Later 
Claims of Lyricism ; Summary. 



The renaissance which has been suggested began 
with the accentuation of the term — New South. This 
did not mean that an old civiHzation was utterly for- 
gotten, or that the cleavage between industrialism and 
agriculture was so sudden as to be instantly marked. 
It simply meant, as Dr. Alderman has said, that there 
was a resumption of the idea of national unity which 
our forefathers so steadfastly maintained, and which 
" got shunted off " by slavery. And by the very main- 
tenance of that term — New South — there is exhibited 
the pronounced tendency of the Southern people to 
uphold a phrase by the highest in their natures. 

Its utterance came with the Centennial spirit, when 
large men strove to overleap the obstacles of reconcili- 
ation between the North and South. Many remark- 
able forces were at work as evidence of the good- will 
prompting the attempt. When Lanier wrote his 
" Cantata," the attack upon him from the press, while 
perhaps fraught with a tinge of sectional bitterness, 
was likewise deservedly critical, for a poem such as 

449 



450 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

that one, written by the formula of a poetic theory, 
challenged opposition, no matter what its national out- 
look. But Lanier, apart from this artistic task, was 
an unswerving believer in the eventual consolidation 
of sectional interests; he reached his beliefs, quite as 
much because it was his nature to love, as it was his 
habit to weigh cause and effect. And thus it is, that 
in any discussion of the constructive forces molding 
the New South, Lanier must be carefully considered 
in his art expressions, as Senator Morgan, of Alabama, 
and Senator L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, were in 
their Congressional efforts for adjustment and under- 
standing. 

The term New South, however, is associated very 
largely with the name of a most lovable figure in 
Southern letters — Henry W. Grady ( 185 1- 1889), 
whose short career as journalist and as citizen left 
indelible impress upon his section, and most partic- 
ularly upon the city of Atlanta. He was a child of 
the Reconstruction, beginning to write when a mere 
boy; and despite the fact that the war bereft him of 
his father, he buried all issues and reached forward at 
a time when it would have meant destruction to look 
backward. No man w^as so loved as he, no eloquence 
carried with it wherever he went — North or South — 
so much hopefulness as his; no vision at the time 
was so clear in its practical scope. The very secret 
of his power, the very fascination of his speech, were 
born of a youth whose genius did not require pro- 
found learning to measure the affairs of men. 

Grady's honesty of purpose is an example upon 
which many have discoursed. He was above corrup- 
tion; he declined public emolument; his concept 
of journalism was essentially simple; he wrote 
with force, with picturesqueness, with humor, and 
always with truth; he did not descend to mean- 
ness; his friends never knew him to bear malice. 
These traits of character, of personal magnetism, are 



THE NEW SOUTH 45 1 

significant in a son of Reconstruction. If he had polit- 
ical faith, it was not because politics inspired it, but 
because, as a journalist, he felt that an editorial writer 
could wield influence for the better; if, as a journahst, 
he believed in and maintained the dignity of his office, 
it was not because that office throughout the South 
was highly conceived, even though Prentice and Wat- 
terson in Louisville were maintaining a high standard. 

There was moral enthusiasm in everything done by 
Grady, but it was likewise his artistry which brought 
him much of his effect. When he went to Charleston, 
at the time of the earthquake, his masterfulness was no 
less marked than the beneficent kindliness of his pres- 
ence. Though no reporter, in the common acceptance 
of the term, he carried the reportorial method to the 
highest point, and concentrated all his quickness, his 
dramatic instinct, his humanity, upon some purpose. 

It is, therefore, not surprising that Grady was re- 
garded as one of the big forces in the South at the time 
he purchased an interest in the Atlanta Constitution, 
during 1880. He was a force among the rural popula- 
tion, because there was that in him out of which a 
farmer might have been made; he was a force in the 
political life of Georgia, because he understood the 
wants of the people and had within him a true demo- 
cratic sympathy. His position in the newspaper world 
had been subject to many precarious turns of fortune, 
and his experiences with the New York Herald made 
him acquainted with the North, where he was to do 
some of his most effective oratory in the cause of the 
New South. Wherever he went, such a man was as- 
sured of friends; his very conversational powers at- 
tracted; his social bearing, his love of children, his 
sentiment, which was as traditional as his speeches 
were prophetic — these were the elements which con- 
duced, as Harris says, to make him the best-loved man 
in Georgia. 

People knew the carrying power of Grady. What- 



452 THE LITERATURE OF, THE SOUTH 

ever local enterprise was at stake, he was sought in 
its cause; the common belief was that a man had best 
give up a political office if Grady were not with him. 
Atlanta called upon him many times; his appeals, 
which took the form of moving editorials, carried 
instantaneous effect; he had the creative ability, and 
he exercised imagination. 

As a figure of more than local or sectional impor- 
tance, Grady came to the fore on December 21, 1886, 
when, before the New England Club, he delivered his 
famous address on " The New South." Not only was 
the address notable, but it was a trick of Fate that 
this Georgian should be able to stand within the path 
of Sherman, as an example of how the South recov- 
ered from the latter's " carelessness with fire," There 
was beauty in his picture of the return home of the 
Confederate soldier, — a beauty as touching, as poetic, 
as his conception of the farmer's home. But more than 
that, Grady bore evidence, in every warm word he 
uttered, that he knew what this South of the future 
was to be — not one of ruin amidst sullenness, but a 
South realizing its resources and its responsibilities. 
It was not in him to relinquish the past, or to regret ; 
but he voiced the South's tremendous hope for the 
future which lay in the resumption of national 
obligations. 

The moral effect of this speech was tremendous; 
Grady's name rang through the land ; his words caught 
fire; his imagery lingered in the minds of North and 
South alike. Wherever he turned now, he was asked 
for utterance on imminent problems, and in examina- 
tion of the South he was always most keen, most far- 
reaching. His political grasp made him see the neces- 
sity for keeping the integrity of the vote, though he 
was far from wanting the negro left unprotected; his 
familiarity with the rural South gave him opportunity 
of noting what need there was for thrift and industry. 




JAMES LANE ALLEN. 
By courtesy of the Macmillan Company. 



THE NEW SOUTH 453 

With Lanier, who sang of the South in "Corn," he 
reaHzed that with the passing of slavery, the old eco- 
nomic law would no longer be tenabJe. He thus 
prophesies what is at the basis of Mr. Murphy's books : 

" The New South presents a perfect democracy, 
the oligarchs leading in the popular movement — a 
social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid 
on the surface, but stronger at the core; a hundred 
farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every pal- 
ace, and a diversified industry that meets the complex 
needs of this complex age." 

Grady had a striking manner of painting condition, 
of reaching his climax by contrast; but more than 
that, it was the manhood represented by him which 
meant most. When he died, in 1889, we know of no 
more universal grief than that shown North and South. 

The effect of consolidation, of compactness, of uni- 
formity, is being felt in many ways throughout the 
South. In 1870, when Professor Shaler wrote of his 
return visit to South Carolina, he was of the opinion 
that the Southerners varied so pronouncedly because 
they had grown up farther apart [than Northerners], 
and had "not shaped themselves on each other, like 
the cells in a honeycomb or the trees in a forest." 
Yet concentration, which leads to congestion, was de- 
plored by Grady when he saw the phenomenal growth 
of Atlanta around 1870. Nevertheless, the increase of 
city life in the South has meant a like increase of 
wealth and the attraction of capital from the North. 
The section must be careful of the emigrant, since 
the labor problem is already complicated enough; in 
the formation of new political pohcies, the South still 
has to protect itself from the outside, until there is a 
full realization that the negro problem is a national 
problem after all. 

For the opening-up process of a civilization, used to 
conservatism based on class distinction, must be care- 



454 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

fully considered. Politically, the South has remained 
solid ever since Republicanism became identified with 
Reconstruction; the unwisdom of the latter acts still 
cling to it, although the party itself has changed — in 
fact, has so closely approached Democracy as to make 
the two scarcely unlike, save in their sectional tra- 
ditions. The term " Solid South " carries with it 
certain distrust, largely due to the presence of the 
negro. Should the compactness give way — a dissolu- 
tion which would undoubtedly do much to broaden the 
political thought of the Southern people — there is 
nothing in the horizon to assure the section of that 
guardedness which political compactness now guaran- 
tees. The constitutional amendments are still immi- 
nent. Of course this attitude leads to a continuance 
of isolation, to a retarding of the growth of national 
ideals, and to the further maintenance of a sectional 
antagonism. The problem is still in solution. 

In fact, the South is in a state of transition, and that 
is why, for our literary purpose, we needs must pass 
lightly over the points of political interest. The con- 
dition of the popular mind toward child labor and 
its just regulation, toward the cotton mill and its influ- 
ence on rural life, will be duly reflected in the litera- 
ture within the next decade; the social consciousness 
of these facts is now seeking expression; human jus- 
tice is at work. And it is to be noted, as Alderman 
asserts, that while the spirit of industrialism has 
gripped the South — industrialism as opposed to com- 
mercialism — the spirit of the ideal is too much a part 
of Southern character to be destroyed. This awak- 
ening, this broadening, this enriching of the social 
and economic life, which was so numbed by the insti- 
tution of slavery around 1830, will make flexible the 
mental activity of the South. 

One of the greatest factors in the educational trans- 
formation of the section will be the increased respect 



THE NEW SOUTH 455 

for law and order among a mixed population. 
Through this acquisition will arrive the time when 
lynching will be obliterated, when a species of social 
hysteria, analyzed by Mr. Murphy and Mr. Page, will 
give way before the efficiency of a constabulary, and 
the exercise of justice to the negro as well as to the 
white. It is a matter which involves the moral devel- 
opment of the negro, which necessitates the alertness, 
and the calm but firm action of the people as a demo- 
cratic body in whom the law is vested to exercise and 
not to break. The Southern people are realizing that 
lynch law does not prevent the crime which has been 
encouraged through the mistaken idea of social equal- 
ity, inflaming the minds of the brute negroes. The 
best whites need to condemn the lynchers who discount 
the effectiveness of law and order; the most intelli- 
gent negroes should condemn the outrage, and not 
seek to protect the criminal. In dealing with these 
problems literarily, the Southern writer either shows 
reticence or indifference, for the reading public is sen- 
sitive whenever plain talk is mixed with fiction. It is 
within the power of the economist, of the sociologist, 
of the constructive statesman, to create a public opin- 
ion which will be concerned in a literary expression 
of Southern conditions and of live issues. 



II 

In 1873, a wave of interest in the literary possibili- 
ties of the South swept over the Northern magazine 
editor; Scrihnefs, then under the supervision of J. G. 
Holland, sent a special train through the Lower South 
on a mission of discovery, and many of the authors 
familiar to us of the present were forthcoming as a 
consequence of this quest. In the January issue of 
Harper's for 1874, there were several articles on the 



456 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

New South, and in 1881, a special editorial was printed 
in Scrihner'Sj whose cordial tone was nevertheless com- 
bined with some discerning remarks regarding the un- 
reasoning idolatry bestowed upon Southern literature 
of the past, which at its best was provincial, over- 
florid, and over-sentimental. It was then recognized 
that what the South most needed — outside the imme- 
diate necessities of living — were broad sympathy, 
which was very different from the previous exclusive- 
ness, and a realization that local appreciation meant 
provincialism, while universal approbation was 
founded on a broader culture. 

As a consequence of Scrihnefs initiative, the Cen- 
tury for April, 1884, appeared with a frontispiece of 
Lanier, and Dr. Ward's discriminating critique on 
the poet. The contents also showed an article on the 
negro problem, called ** Uncle Tom without a Cabin " ; 
an installment of Cable's " Dr. Sevier " ; Page's ex- 
quisite story, " Marse Chan," and an *' Open Letter " 
on Lanier and the English Novel. This response to 
the call of 1873 was propitious; it meant that the cul- 
ture of the past was not devoid of the creative im- 
pulse; it also represented at the very outset the char- 
acter of the literature which would necessarily follow 
the passing of a cherished regime. 

It is to be hoped that our point of view regarding 
Southern letters has been sufficiently emphasized to 
justify its connection with social and economic his- 
tory. Others, like Davidson, Rutherford, Manley, Hol- 
liday, and Trent, have presented the usual biograph- 
ical data, with sufficient perspective to indicate how 
closely dependent the literature is upon the life. But 
the complete realization of the connection is best had 
through accentuation of the atmosphere and the tradi- 
tional ideas, which lent feeling to the style, at the 
same time that they limited catholicity of taste. Link 
and Baskerville in turn have prepared suggestive 



THE NEW SOUTH 457 

studies of individual authors, showing* discernment and 
critical appreciation. But in none of these has there 
been an emphatic justification of the sectional point of 
view because of the distinctive evolution of Southern 
culture. That is the only reason for a book on South- 
ern Hterature; it is made possible by the life of the 
past; apart from the New England school, national 
development has largely been colored by Southern 
character. In fact. Judge Tourgee was correct in his 
1888 opinion: "A foreigner studying our current 
literature, without knowledge of our history, and 
judging our civilization by our fiction, would undoubt- 
edly conclude that the South was the seat of intellec- 
tual empire in America, and the African the chief 
romantic element of our population." 

The South has never been without ^culture, without 
mental activity of a certain character, but it was a 
culture of a classic coldness, unrelated to life, to imme- 
diate problems, unapplied save in the practice of a 
courtly manner or in the utterance of a rounded 
speech. It was not willing to embrace, to include, to 
assimilate the new activities which were products of 
the present. It dealt with class rather than with 
classes. Southern fiction has suffered from this con- 
servative limitation ; the poor white and the economic 
negro are still to be given full literary recognition. 
We have been too long in our expression of what 
Tourgee called the " accumulated pathos of a million 
abdications.'* 

Perhaps the insistence with which the term " South- 
ern Literature " has been used, obscures the real prog- 
ress of the social life. If, as Professor Snyder seems 
to believe, the Southern people wanted their own par- 
ticular body of letters by reason " of the excessive 
intellectual loneliness and detachment forced upon the 
South by the very conditions of its life," it is evident 
now that, with the passing of slavery, with the tend- 



458 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

encies toward democracy — brought about by a will- 
ingness to probe deep for historic truth, however much 
it might hurt local pride in the beginning — the 
South is demanding a literature which, if the en- 
vironment is local, must nevertheless be measured in 
terms common to all minds. The very fact that cer- 
tain conditions have been removed which once kept 
the South historically on the defensive, has wrought 
a wonderful change in the mental attitude. This has 
not only made the public more demanding of the qual- 
ity of its literature, but it has likewise produced a 
scholarship which has brought credit to the Smith- 
sonian Institution, Johns Hopkins University, the Uni- 
versity of the South (Sewanee), and the University 
of Virginia. In some instances, the student has suffered 
for his stand against conservatism, for his research; 
the constructive work of Professor Trent separated 
him from complete appreciation by the South, and 
brought him North. 

Yet, the historical view in the South is now so 
broad as to accept keen criticism, and the popular re- 
sponse to the critical spirit is seen in the numberless 
historical societies and associations W'hich, even if, in 
a superficial manner, they do not serve to deepen 
Southern thought, at least dispel inherited preju- 
dices. The student needs must watch closely the ex- 
tension of the university spirit in wider channels — an 
extension prophesied and planned for by Lanier in his 
correspondence with President Oilman. 

Still, we cannot help but heed the warnings of John 
Spencer Bassett, who has watched socially and eco- 
nomically the field of Southern authorship — a field 
still lacking in that popular encouragement which jus- 
tifies the practice of letters as a profession. There is 
a whole historical perspective behind the statement 
that " we write as a people who are not yet out of 
the stage of uncultured animalism" — a civilization 



THE NEW SOUTH 459 

with no intellectual incentive, because of prescribed 
culture. The mental stimulation has just been suf- 
ficient, since 1902, when the historical initiative began, 
to show the ambitious Southerner how necessary it is 
for him to turn where people reside in an atmosphere 
of expectancy. As we have said, no section can long 
stand this exceptional drain. 

So, with the intensive development of the historical 
view, with the further accentuation of the critical 
spirit, with the increased interest in letters among all 
classes, due to education and the libraries — two factors 
which are bridging the distances between the rural 
South and city life — with these active forces, the gen- 
eral economic condition of the book-trade in the South 
should be bettered. Yet, as Dr. Bassett suggests, the 
process of making the Southern people love books suf- 
ficiently to buy them is a slow process ; in consequence, 
the Northern publisher regards his Southern territory 
with condescension, and in many cases — through a 
process of mistaken indifference — sends his poorest 
traveler in the rural districts where the greatest in- 
genuity and personal initiative are requisite. The fact 
is that at present there is not sufficient money in the 
South to make the intellectual institutions independ- 
ent economically of the social condition, and for that 
reason, the Southern college, — poorly endowed, if en- 
dowed at all, — cannot offer the broad inducements 
held forth to Southern students by Northern univer- 
sities. For example, the libraries in the South are 
not yet equipped in reference material for the proper 
exercise of the research spirit. Columbia University, 
by reason of the gift made to it of the " Garden 
Library" of Southern Americana, is exceptionally 
well prepared for special study of Southern conditions, 
and its doctorate list will indicate how well the South- 
ern student has responded to the opportunity. But, 
as a matter of fact, all universities are devoting some 



46o THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

time to preparation of invaluable monographs on 
Southern economic and social problems. 

This renaissance of the critical spirit in the South 
has produced three types of mind. The man who has 
just wakened after a period of mental sloth, due to 
condition of environment, is usually strong in an untu- 
tored fashion, and is often wrong by reason of the 
very refreshing boldness with which historic truth is 
Ignored. This response is representative of the 
South's realization that it has a right to think; it de- 
pends upon all of its native genius, and is attractive 
because, as far as manner goes, it is youthful and 
wild and confident, even if only partly true. Such a 
writer is one of the hopeful signs of the awaken- 
ing provincial South, struggling against Southern Hm- 
itations which still cling, despite the many efforts to 
be free of them. His essays, when he produces them, 
are brilliant, his stories alive to conditions of the soil ; 
he is perhaps deft in poignant phrasing, and his ob- 
servation is intuitive rather than all-embracing. By 
its very bravery in a broader atmosphere, such a tem- 
perament shows its provincialism in the effort to 
be cosmopolitan. But it is vigorous by reason of a 
broader contact, though it shows no willingness to 
practice intellectual courtesy toward others. It is a 
reaction, probably due to the culture of the old 
regime, which was conventional in a repressive way. 
Mrs. L. H. Harris is a fair example of this class. 

The other type of mind is that which devotes itself 
to research in the spirit of preservation — the spirit 
which dominates in the average text-books on South- 
ern literature, and in the compilation issued in 1908-9 
by the University of Virginia. The third class is well 
exemplified in the Southern number of the World's 
Work, but more comprehensively and more histor- 
ically in " The South in the Building of the Nation." 



THE NEW SOUTH 461 

in 

The literary critic of the present must be careful 
not to confound transitory styles with real and abiding 
characteristics. The ante-bellum Southerner carefully 
avoided any estimate of locality in its true color; he 
sedulously ignored the condition. But now, with the 
increased attention paid to social study, the writer 
naturally turns to types which he proceeds to estimate 
according to true analysis, being faithful to motive 
and to psychology. In the process of evolution, some 
of the old style has clung to the new, and while Rich- 
ard Malcolm Johnston (1822-1898), in his portraiture 
of Middle Georgia life, may be said to belong to the 
same school as Thomas Nelson Page, since he began 
his literary work as late as 1870, he nevertheless grew 
up with the tradition of the school of Simms and 
Kennedy, besides being greatly influenced by the hu- 
mor of Longstreet. The art of the story-teller is not 
the vital content of Johnston, though his humor is skill- 
fully abstracted from character rather than from broad 
situations, such as are in "Georgia Scenes." His 
" Dukesborough Tales" (1871) are valuable for the 
social description they contain of a civilization which 
will pass away, though it still exists among the poor 
whites who figure in the stories of Will Harben. From 
a personal standpoint, most of Johnston's fiction was a 
reflection of his own experiences during the years he 
fluctuated between the practice of law, the teaching of 
school, and the desultory writing of stories ; in fact, the 
long list of books to his credit, apart from his kindly, 
breezy, casual "Autobiography" (1900), are simply 
genial memories, in disguise, of his own career. As 
an essay writer, as a biographer of Stephens, as a 
collaborator in literary work with William Hand 
Browne, he displayed acumen and enthusiasm, but his 
dominant and distinctive mark was humor. 



462 TPIE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

In his delineation of Georgia character, Johnston re- 
tained those distinguishing traits which are so effec- 
tively, so naturally handled by Mr. Harben; there is 
more of the seriousness of reality in the latter — a 
seriousness which is bound up in crude passion, in 
ascetic religion, in a tenacious hold upon traditional 
likes and dislikes; a seriousness which includes full 
recognition of the new influences subjecting the old 
customs to change. 

But whereas Johnston, in his character studies, 
sometimes falls into the ease of the essay writer, Mr. 
Harben is purely the novelist of a more modern school 
— not quite deft enough in his conception and execu- 
tion of plot, but still intensely true when he deals with 
the psychology of types, such as are to be found in 
"The Georgians." 

The one desire should be to keep our Southern 
writers in the channels which their genius or their 
training prompts them at first to seek. The danger 
seems to be that pressure from the outside deflects 
their natural bent. In his Northern associations, Mr. 
Harben is necessarily subjected to influences foreign 
to the soil which is part of his make-up. One can- 
not superimpose foreign elements upon a strange lo- 
cality, unless these elements are so common as to 
transcend their particularity ; nor can an author accus- 
tom himself to an atmosphere to which his bearing is 
wholly unaccustomed. This struggle of opposing in- 
terests has modified the work of Miss Ellen Glasgow, 
has made some of her later novels untrue in their 
striving for an exotic atmosphere, and in their psy- 
chology of an undigested social condition. For that 
reason, " The Wheel of Life," which was a pop- 
ular imitation of Mrs. Wharton's ''The House of 
Mirth," proved a failure, while " The Ancient Law " 
and " The Romance of a Plain Man " became morbid 
because of a psychological method which Miss Glasgow 



THE NEW SOUTH 463 

has undoubtedly adopted after saturating herself in 
foreign literature of a neurotic type. 

The Southerner is therefore much more healthy 
when content to apply a culture, which is absorbed 
rather than outwardly assumed, to a soil of which he 
is part, by tradition and training. When Miss Glas- 
gow first turned her attention to her section as a social 
student, she produced some of her most effective work, 
best emphasized in " The Voice of the People '' ; she 
illustrated most satisfactorily her power to combine 
the sentiment of despair with that of chivalry and 
romance, in her stirring record of "The Battle- 
ground." Perhaps her nearest approach to an epic 
sweep of the soil is in " The DeHverance," which, in 
delineation of character, in description of the tobacco 
fields, in the traditions of Southern temperament, ranks 
among the few great American novels. Signifi- 
cantly, these few novels all deal with phases of the 
American soil — the hemp of Allen's "The Reign of 
Law,'' the wheat of Norris's " The Octopus," the 
moral fiber of Hawthorne's " The Scarlet Letter." 

Miss Glasgow, it is to be hoped, will return to her 
field ; for the South is still rich in unworked possibili- 
ties, where psychology may have as free play and 
where the combinations of motives and passions are as 
numerous as elsewhere. It is a question as to whether 
the democratization which is working in the South 
to-day has a right to deflect the intensive study and 
realistic observation of the Southern writer from 
familiar locality. The poetic quality of James Lane 
Allen's " Kentucky Cardinal " ripened into a deeper 
and more abiding examination of the evolution of 
life in " The Reign of Law," but lately has lost grip 
of the sound condition of character in a misty sym- 
bolism self-consciously displayed in the first of a tril- 
ogy, called " The Bride of the Mistletoe." We may 
ponder the fact as to whether such deflection is a result 



464 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

of a more broadening culture, or whether it is due to 
the obvious cause that so many of our Southern writ- 
ers are Hving North. Undoubtedly Mr. Page's resi- 
dence in Washington has had some appreciable effect 
on his last story, "John Marvel, Assistant." 

This digression from the logical sequence of lit- 
erary development is purposely done to arrive at the 
conclusion that democratization, as it applies to litera- 
ture, virtually means a deepening realization of social 
and economic condition, and does not demand the re- 
linquishment of environment. The Southern liter- 
ature of the present — and by that we mean since the 
Centennial year — is distinctly one of locality, and sev- 
eral novelists, in order to attach themselves to their 
State, have preceded much of their fiction with essays 
bordering on the style of social studies. Such, for in- 
stance, are Cable's "The Creoles of Louisiana," an 
historical sketch of much color and value; Allen's 
" Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky," a survey of social 
weight, and as full of nature painting as " The Reign 
of Law " ; Page's " The Old South," adequately pre- 
sentative of old-time flavor ; Grace King's " New 
Orleans," and other historical studies indicative of 
social interest, like Fox's articles on the Kentucky 
mountaineer. 

The tendency of the Southern mind through many 
generations has placed Southern fiction in a rut; the 
difficulty in overcoming this has been partly due to 
the popularity and artistry of Mr. Page. The very 
tenacity with which the South has held to certain 
literary forms marks a distincjtly Southern school of 
novelist, and we detect a mid-period between the old 
and the new, best exemplified in Charles Egbert Crad- 
dock, who combines a stately redundancy of style with 
a realistic understanding of condition. But the Cava- 
lier spirit is uppermost in the art of the Southern 




ELLEN GLASGOW. 
By courtesy of the Macmillan Company. 



THE NEW SOUTH 465 

writer, and its persistency, we repeat, is largely due 
to the influence of Mr. Page. 

The vital consciousness of race-mixture has not yet 
impressed itself upon Southern literature. Mr. Cable 
picturesquely dealt with one strain in his Creole life 
which forms the essential background for such dra- 
matic stories as ** The Grandissimes " and " Dr. 
Sevier." And whatever critics may say to the con- 
trary, no more exquisite examples of the delicate art 
of story-telling are to be had than those contained in 
" Old Creole Days." Nor does there seem to be a 
diminishing of Mr. Cable's power to produce the effec- 
tive atmosphere of Creole life, which may not be true 
atmosphere, but is none the less vivid and carrying; 
for **The Cavalier" (1901) does not possess any of 
the virility, of the terse power, of " Kinkaid's Bat- 
tery" (1908). 

Another phase of Southern life that has received 
treatment has been the poor w^hite of the mountain, 
whom Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary Noailles Mur- 
free) made her own pioneer province. For, while in 
the novels of Simms and Kennedy and Beverley 
Tucker, the class pushed from the tide-water district 
was occasionally referred to, there was no human 
sympathy bestowed upon the picture. From the time 
Mr. Howells and Mr. Aldrich, as editors of the At- 
lantic Monthly, mistook their contributor, under her 
nom de plume, for a man, until the present. Miss Mur- 
free has never forsaken the essential outlines of her 
locality. If her types are contrasted with those of 
John Fox, Jr., who is as much her follower as Miss 
King is of Mr. Cable, it will be seen how different the 
pioneer mountain life is already from the mountain folk 
who have in general become accustomed to the pres- 
ence of law, and who are beginning, with the approach 
of education, to recognize the necessity for order. 



466 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

The moonshiner, the peculiar supremacy of the cir- 
cuit rider, the isolated blacksmith, the crossroads shop- 
keeper, are changing, but not before Charles Egbert 
Craddock has caught a likeness on a canvas which 
adds distinction to American letters, no less than to 
Southern literature. 

The third class in local life is the negro, who has 
through tribal bequeathment engrafted upon South- 
ern soil a distinct music and an exceptional folk-lore. 
No one has ventured to trespass upon the ground 
which Joel Chandler Harris stamped with his own 
genius between 1876 and 1880 in "Uncle Remus." 
We doubt, in the sum total of Southern literary activ- 
ity for the past forty years, whether any more perma- 
nent contribution has been made to America than the 
record of the folk-lore which sprang up among the 
negroes of different types, peopling the rice planta- 
tions and cotton districts during slavery. 

There are a fourth and a fifth class which will not 
be deeply realized by the Southern writer until the 
social interest of the student has paved the way with 
investigation ; the poor white, the clay-eater, sporadi- 
cally treated by such an author as Norah Davis, of 
Alabama, has thus far only attracted Mr. Harben, and 
he is a type of Southerner who is partly conscious of 
the necessity for melodramatic incident which detracts 
from the intensive psychology of his characters. The 
economic man has not been truly conceived, because 
he is still reaching out for his economic place. 



IV 

When one gives each phase of Southern life here 
suggested minute consideration, it is seen how inade- 
quate a cursory glance must necessarily be. Save for 
the sketchy and suggestive ''Louisiana Studies" by 
Alcee Fortier, the Creole life of the Lower South has 



THE NEW SOUTH 467 

not received that systematized study which it deserves 
and v^hich the material in the Howard Memorial 
Library of New Orleans warrants. Here is a field 
for original investigation, which some student of Tu- 
lane University should consider a self-appointed task. 
For the novels by Cable and the " Balcony Stories " 
of Miss King are not sufficient guarantee of the pres- 
ervation of the Creole flavor and of the causes for that 
life which, during so many years, remained distinct 
(where the Gringo element of California was quickly 
absorbed), and which, whether in the fiction of Cable's 
"Madame Delphine" or in the facts of Cable's 
'' Strange True Stories of Louisiana," or in the simple 
juvenile narratives of Mrs. C. V. S. Jamison's " Lady 
Jane " and " Toinette's Philip," stands emphasized by 
strength as well as by attractiveness, by permanent 
contribution to intellectual culture as well as by polit- 
ical service and social charm. 

It is only just now that the American student is 
awake to the necessity for preserving such details in 
the spirit of investigation. The novels of Craddock 
and Fox are saturated with instances of the folk beliefs 
and customs of the mountain people, but there should 
be a more systematic study of these peculiarities, since 
they are the very heart and blood of a peculiar type, 
having penetrated to the core of Hfe, affecting their 
speech, preserving old English forms, nursing feuds 
which descend through the pulsing of blood rather 
than through the conviction of right and wrong — a 
conviction which comes with reason. 

The mountain road kept civilization away and pre- 
served the dialect and the social custom of the peo- 
ple ; and even as there is the Saxon directness to their 
speech, there is likewise the virgin Saxon strength 
to their minds, just being touched into active life. 
These people have their especial amusements, their 
religious intensity, their strict morality, and their 



468 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

peculiar dispensation of justice, their loud expressions 
of fleeting emotion, their superstitions of a Middle- 
Age type; all these conditions exist in the mountains 
of Tennessee and of the Carolinas. From such en- 
vironment Charles Egbert Craddock's most noted 
novel, " The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain " 
(1885), and John Fox's most artistically conceived 
story, "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1908), 
were drawn. 

The note of greatest originality in Southern liter- 
ature is the element of folk-lore, which has yet to be 
worked in its relation to the poor whites, and the ele- 
ments of folk-song and of folk-lore which, in their 
relation to the negroes, have been productive of a 
native body of legend. Mr. Harris's introduction to 
the 1883 edition of "Nights with Uncle Remus" is 
significant, but perhaps the following paragraph is 
most immediately demanding of the student's atten- 
tion, inasmuch as it contains a warning : 

" There is good reason to suppose . . ." so he 
wrote, "that many of the negroes born near the close 
of the war or since, are unfamiliar with the great body 
of their own folk-lore. ... In the tumult and 
confusion incident to their changed condition, they 
have had few opportunities to become acquainted with 
that wonderful collection of tales which their ances- 
tors told in the kitchens and cabins of the Old Planta- 
tion. The older negroes are as fond of the legends 
as ever, but the occasion, or the excuse, for telling 
them becomes less frequent year by year." 

Yet the years have not added much to that which 
Mr. Harris himself did in the true spirit of investiga- 
tion, and with an art which preserved the real African 
flavor of the originals at the same time that it added, 
in an unobtrusive manner, the rich background of 
plantation life in Middle Georgia before the war. Yet 
the necessity for the proper valuation of negro folk- 



THE NEW SOUTH 469 

lore and folk-song becomes more apparent as the 
plantation " hand " and the pure negroes grow numer- 
ically less. Even civilization is having an appreciable 
effect upon the forms in which the lore and music are 
preserved. No better illustration can be found of the 
fact that a folk-song ceases to be a folk-song as soon 
as it is modified by conscious composition than in the 
harmonized and softened glees of the Hampton Insti- 
tute students. 

It is the popular belief that the negro has ceased to 
sing because the economic life has blighted his true 
savage instinct, his irresponsible, careless emotional- 
ism. But there is no doubt that the old-time colored 
house servant and the faithful *' mammy" are giving 
way before the new conditions, and with them are 
disappearing those melodies, cradle songs, hymns, and 
secular chants of freedom which Dvorak called the 
only American music of any worth. These are dis- 
tinctive for their form, for the peculiar pulsing value 
of their repetition, for their religious attitude which is 
an admixture of solemnity with abandon, of wailing 
with exhortation, of tonal color with bodily motion, — 
upon which, at times, the rhythm seems to depend, — of 
humor with terror, as in the negro conception of Satan. 
Paul Laurence Dunbar's sweet lyrics of cabin and 
field faintly suggest the plaintive call of the poetic side 
of the negro; his are not, however, constitutionally, 
African melodies ; they are polished, and have none of 
the tribal quality of the vocero. Howard Weedon's 
shadows of a departing negro life, in their portraiture, 
bring out the picturesque quality of those types we all 
know, who have ever been on a Southern plantation. 

But after all, the folk-lore and folk-song are ex- 
pressions deeply grounded in nature, and only changed 
when the conditions which fostered them become ex- 
tinct. Investigators have shown, for example, that 
the Civil War did little for negro song, perhaps here 



470 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

and there suggesting a sentiment which was more imi- 
tation than understanding. In the days of moving 
armies, when the land shook with the tread of soldiers, 
it is natural that at camp-meeting the negro should 
sing, " When the general roll is called, I'll be there ! " 

The negro is still superstitious : he still moves best 
in rhythmic time, whether in the cotton field or on the 
railroad track; he still regards the locomotive and the 
boat, especially if he lives inland, with awe and rever- 
ence. His pick or spade is sent deeper into the earth 
when stressed with a musical note, his religion is still 
more effective when, with bodily twisting and shouts, 
he forces himself into a trance; his theology is still 
that of the heart rather than of the intellect. Yet his 
pristine simplicity is passing away. 

Such negro writers as Charles W. Chesnutt have 
had no appreciable effect in establishing a permanent 
body of negro literature in the South, and the many 
novels that introduce the negro do so in a conventional 
manner. Ruth McEnery Stuart in " Sonny *' and 
Harry Stillwell Edwards in " The Two Runaways " 
have successfully caught the characteristics of the de- 
pendant, who is scarcely removed from the condition 
of slavery, a picture which does not depart from, but 
only reinforces the technical and artistic excellences 
of Harris's " Free Joe.'* 

The general feeling regarding the fate of Southern 
fiction at the present time is that it is on the verge of 
a radical change; it is more careful in its use of his- 
tory in such novels as Mary Johnston's **To Have 
and to Hold," " Audrey," and " Lewis Rand," though 
it still retains, to a large degree, the sentiment and 
feeling which have always marked Southern literature. 
In fact, the emotional color — which includes the un- 
shakable religious faith of generations — still grips the 
South. We should welcome any body of letters which 
represents so sweetly the features of a past day. Even 



THE NEW SOUTH 47 1 

though the issues be dead, which are graphically set 
down in Page's " Red Rock " and Harris's " Gabriel 
Tolliver " — ^both strong stories of Reconstruction, — we 
must remember that the time will come when the face 
of fiction will be far different, when we shall look 
back upon this first-hand treatment of a worthy civil- 
ization, as we regard the faded daguerreotype of crin- 
oline and hoop-skirt days. 

There are writers whose activities are broader than 
a section, yet whose sentiment, when it is allowed 
natural play, harks back to the land of its birth. No 
one in the future will discount the permanence of F. 
Hopkinson Smith's " Colonel Carter of Cartersville." 
There are writers whose lineage predestines the style 
and flavor of their thought. No one could possibly 
challenge the identification of Mrs. Burton Harrison's 
"Flower de Hundred" or "The Carlyles " with 
locality. 

Yet, at its best, Southern fiction cannot escape be- 
ing grouped under definite heads. There is a quality 
to Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, to Molly Elliott Seawell, to 
Amelie Rives, to Sarah Barnwell Elliott, — and per- 
haps to Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, if we wish to 
be over-inclusive, — which bulks in feeling, whether 
intended for adults or for young people. It is an en- 
tertaining literature, pleasurable in its associations, 
but far from vital, even in its commonplaceness. 

There is still that latitude to the Southern author's 
work which allows him easily to figure as poet, essay- 
ist, and novelist — all in one. This is a failing every- 
where, in fact, and sometimes it is an agreeable fail- 
ing, for the verse of Miss Glasgow is strong in its 
spiritual position. As a poet, Mr. Page is pleasing, 
and as an essayist, genial and picturesque in an impres- 
sionistic manner. The Southerner still regards liter- 
ature as a dainty accomplishment ; this is especially so 
in the realm of poetry, where nothing large is being 



472 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

done, but where delicate sentiments reflect a past 
chivalry, and where lines are fragrant with the odor 
of the Southern landscape. 

Mention has already been made of the miniature 
impressions — philosophical and descriptive — in the 
quatrains of William Hamilton Hayne and Father 
Tabb; it is hardly requisite to do more than record 
the names of Samuel Minturn Peck, Robert Loveman, 
Danske Dandridge, and Lizette Woodworth Reese, 
whose verses have the lyric quality which is refined, but 
which escapes the sustained note of great song. In the 
newspaper world, Frank L. Stanton has brought com- 
fort and cheer to the untutored, and in forcing his 
Muse to its daily task, he has flashed forth sparks of 
exceptional brightness. Irwin Russell (1853-1879), in 
his short-Hved career, won reputation for his metrical 
delineation of negro character. 

In a larger sense, Madison Cawein, the laureate of 
Kentucky, may be regarded as the most distinctive 
poet in the South to-day. Much of his early verse, 
as Edmund Gosse remarks, suffers from the lack of 
criticism which kept the South for so long a time in a 
provincial state. But while, in the numerous slim 
volumes to Mr. Cawein's credit, there is the same pan- 
theistic note, and while there is an ever-recurrent use 
of identifying features of landscape, the total effect 
is atmospheric — aloof from the world of men. In his 
gaze he is voluptuous, but there is a feeling that the 
passion is cold; he is contemplative, impressionistic, 
and possesses Dorothy Wordsworth's love for the 
moods of nature, without the reflection that follows. 
Some of his poems are inspired by reading; certainly 
his philosophy — if it is clearly defined to himself — is 
worked out from book-learning. His one original 
bearing is his intimate consciousness of nature. But, 
as to his aliveness, one is inclined to believe, with a re- 
viewer on the New York Times, that, "in spite of 




JOHN FOX, JR. 
By courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE NEW SOUTH 473 

his modern accent, he always manages in his poetry to 
awaken the spirit of old ideals, illusions, faiths, and 
superstitions/' 

V 

The supreme significance of literary history is one 
with the meaning of life; it adapts itself to the condi- 
tions of time; its form of expression is fluid in so far 
as the mental culture of the people is plastic. It is 
unwise to utter strictures at close view; that is why 
the authors representative of the South to-day have 
been so lightly touched upon. It is not probable that 
an intellectual cataclysm w^ill occur in the Southern 
States so suddenly as to alter the mental texture of 
the work already accomplished by Mr. Cable, Mr. 
Page, or Mr. Allen. The younger generation are in 
the maelstrom whose undertow is strong and signifi- 
cant — all the more since it cannot be seen. You 
will find many traces, in this new order, of the future 
literary technique and intellectual interest; they are 
the traces which distinguish John Fox from Miss Mur- 
free, and which dot the pages of Owen Wister's " The 
Virginian " and " Lady Baltimore," and which appear 
in special paragraphs throughout the stories of Miss 
Glasgow. From these two writers one looks for 
much, provided they do not mistake the true meaning 
— social and economic — of democracy and broader 
culture. 

In a critique on the work of Mr. Harben, there oc- 
curs a statement of Mr. Ho wells which touches a vital 
spot in the character of the Southern people. In ef- 
fect, the statement commented upon the absence of 
the infidel among the many Georgian types depicted 
by Mr. Harben. This very absence of the religious 
iconoclast measures the intensity of that spiritual con- 
servatism which still persists through the South. 
Science has not disturbed the bulwark, shifting condi- 



474 THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH 

tion has not unsettled faith, commercial activity has 
not dulled the religious sentiment. Mr. Allen, when 
he first wrote " The Reign of Law," which combated 
the narrow religious views of the past, was met with 
determined opposition from President McGarvey, of 
the College of the Bible in the University of Kentucky. 
The arguments may be passed by, though the little 
pamphlet which contains them is suggestive; what 
needs to be pondered over by the student of conditions 
in the South is the presence of a conservative theology 
which is not yet willing — or at least was not in 1900 — 
to take full cognizance of the intellectual trend of the 
age. There is a compromise between the dogmatic 
theologian and the dogmatic infidel whom Mr. Allen 
took for his hero. Yet the reaction has to come in the 
course of intellectual progression. 

No national point of view should take from the 
South its characteristics or individuality, due to en- 
vironment and inheritance ; the broader culture should 
only deepen and enrich those permanent traits which 
must be protected and nurtured for years to come. 
The essential genius of the Southern people has been 
leadership; history shows this was maintained even 
against social and economic odds. Once more the 
South is in a position — through politically broad con- 
ception — to reclaim the task of leadership. That is 
the next step — if it is not coincident with the clear 
utterance of a vigorous criticism — in the evolution of 
the New South. Once let a general consciousness of 
this power become wider spread, and there is no fear 
that the literature will not be a just and full expres- 
sion of the life it represents. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[The following bibliography does not attempt in any way to record the 
works of the writers under discussion; it only notes those references^ which 
have been of assistance in reaching some idea of the social, economic, and 
political attitude of the Southern People. No effort has been made to in- 
dicate the many Southern periodicals that have been consulted, or to men- 
tion the " Proceedings " of the various Historical Societies. Already, the 
present list has exceeded its limit, and were the critical articles of a lit- 
erary character to be indicated, together with the editions of " Works," 
the bibliography would be swelled to undue proportions for a book of this 
character. It has been my one desire to present to the reader sufficient 
data to afford every opportunity of reaching a full and comprehensive 
understanding of the conditions from which Southern literature has ema- 
nated.— M. J. M.] 

BOOKS 

Allen, James Lane — Blue Grass Region of Kentucky, and other 

Kentucky Articles. 1900. 
Atlanta University — The College-bred Negro ; Report of a Social 

Study. Publications, No. 5. 1900. 
Mortality among Negroes in Cities. [Ed., T. N. 

Chase.] Publications, No. i. 1903. [Report, May 26, 1896.] 
Some Efforts of American Negroes for their own 

Social Betterment. Publications, No. 3. 1898. 
■ The Negro in Business. [List of Negro Newspapers, 

pp. 72-74]. Publications, No. 4. 1899. 
Baker, Ray Stannard — Following the Color Line. N. Y., 1908. 
Baldwin, Joseph G. — Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi: 

A Series of Sketches. San Francisco, 1876. 
Sketches of Party Leaders : Jefferson, Hamilton, Clay, 

Jackson, and Randolph. N. Y., 1855. 
Ballagh, James Curtis — Introduction to Southern Economic His- 
tory: The Land System. Am. Hist. Assoc. Annual Report. 

1897. pp. 99-129. 
Slavery in Virginia, A History of. Jno. Hop. Univ. 

Studies. Extra v. 24. 1902. 
Southern Economic History : Tariff and Public Lands. 

American Hist. Assoc. Annual Report. 1898, pp. 221-63. 
White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. Jno. Hop. 

Univ. Studies in Hist, and Polit. Science. Ser. 113, nos. 6-7. 

1895. 
Barnaby, Rev. Andrew — Travels through the Middle Settlements 

in North America, in the years 1759 and 1760, with Observa- 
tions upon the State of the Colonies. [3rd. ed. Voyage 

begun in 1759-] London, 1798. 
Barton, William E. — Old Plantation Hymns. Boston, 1899. 

475 



476 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Baskerville, William Malone — Southern Writers : Biographical 
and Critical Studies. 2 vols. Tenn., 1898-1903. 

Bassett, John Spencer — Constitutional Beginnings of North Caro- 
lina (1663-1729). Jno. Hop. Univ. Studies in Hist, and Polit. 
Science. Vol. 12, no. 3. 1894. 

The Federal System. (American Nation series, vol. 

II.) 1906. 

^- V^ Regulators of North CaroHna (1765-1771). American 

Hist. Assoc. Report. 1894, pp. 141-212. 

The Relation between the Virginian Planter and the 

London Merchant. Am. Hist. Assoc. 1:551-575. No. XVH. 
;. 1901. 

■ Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Caro- 
lina. Jno. Hop. Univ. Studies in Hist, and Polit. Science. 
Vol. 14. Nos. 4-5. 1896. 
■^ Beard, James Melville — K. K. K. Sketches. Treating the more 
important Events of the Ku-Klux-Klan Movements in the 
South. Phila., 1877. 

Bellows, H. W., D.D. — Woman's Work in the Civil War: Intro- 
duction to. [Co-authors, Brockett, L. P., and Vaughan, Mrs. 
M. C] Phila., 1867. 

Benton, Thomas H. — Thirty Years* View; or, The History and 
Workings of the American Government (1820- 1850). 2 vols. 
N. Y., 1879. 

Benjamin, Judah P. — Biography of. By Pierce Butler. [Amer. 
Crisis Biographies.] N. Y., 1907. 

Blair, Commissary James — Life of. By Daniel Esten Motley. 
Jno. Hop. Univ. Studies. Ser. XIX., no. 10. 1901, 

Bledsoe, Albert Taylor — Essay on Liberty and Slaver5\ Phila., 
1856. 

Is Davis a Traitor ; or, Was Secession a Constitutional 

, Right Previous to the War of 1861? Baltimore, 1866. 

r ^ Brackett, Jeffrey Richardson — Notes on the Progress of the 
Colored People of Maryland since the War, Jno. Hop. Univ. 
Studies in Hist, and Polit. Science. Vol. 8. 1890. Baltimore. 

Bradshaw, Sidney Ernest — On Southern Poetry Prior to i860. 
[Dissertation: Faculty of the University of Virginia.] 1900, 

Brewer, W. — Alabama: her History, Resources, War Record, 
and Public Men, from 1540 to 1872. Montgomery, 1872. 

Brock, R. A. — The Colonial Virginian: An Address before the 
Geographical and Historical Society of Richmond College. 
October 13, 1891. 

Brown, John Mason — The Political Beginnings of Kentucky. 
J , Louisville — Filson Club. Vol. 6. 1889. 
- Brown, William Garrott — The Lower South in American History. 
N. Y., 1902. 

Browne, William Hand — Mar>'land: The History of a Palatinate. 
[Amer. Commonwealth Series.] Boston, 1884. 

■ George Calvert and Cecilins Calvert ; Barons Balti- 
more of Baltimore. [Makers of America Series.] 1890. 



x> 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 477 

■* Bruce, Philip Alexander — Economic History of Virginia in the 
Seventeenth Century; an Inquiry into the Material Condition 
of the People, based upon Original and Contemporaneous 
Records. 2 vols. 1907. 

'■ — Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth 

Century; an Inquiry into the Religious, Moral, Educational, 
Legal, Military, and Political Condition of the People based 
upon Original and Contemporaneous Records. 2 vols. N. Y., 

^- The Plantation Negro as a Freeman. [Questions of 

the Day. No. 57-] 1889. 

The Rise of the New South. [The Hist, of N. A.. 

x^ vol. XVII. ] 

^i-Burgess, John William — Reconstruction and the Constitution 

(1866-1876). [Amen Hist. Series.] N. Y., 1902. 
Byrd, Col. William, of Westover — The Writings of. Edited by 

John Spencer Bassett. N. Y., 1901. 
Cable, George W. — The Silent South, together with the Freed- 

man's Case in Equity and the Convict Lease System. N. Y., 

1899. [See also Cable's history and stories of the Creoles.] 
Cairnes, J. E. — The Slave Power : its Character, Career, and 

Probable Designs. Being an Attempt to Explain the Real 

Issue Involved in the American Contest. London, 1862. 
Cairns, William B. — On the Development of American Literature 

from 1815 to 1833, with especial reference to Periodicals. 

University of Wisconsin. Bulletin. Philol. and Lit. Series, 

vol. I, pp. 1-87. 1898. 
Calhoun, John C. — ^Life of. By Gaillard Hunt. [Am. Crisis 

Biog.] Phila., 1908. [Bibliography.] 
Works. Edited by R. K. Cralle. 6 vols. N. Y., 

1874. 

Life of. By H. E. Von Hoist. [Am. Statesmen 

Series.] Boston, 1883. 

Callahan, James Morton — ^Diplomatic Relations of the Confeder- 
ate States with England (1861-1865). Am. Hist. Assoc. 
Annual Report. 1898, pp. 265-83. 

■ — Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy. Jno. 

Hop. Univ. Shaw Lectures, 1900. Bait., 1901. 

Campbell, Charles — History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion 
of Virginia, i860. 

Channing, Edward — Town and County Government in the Eng- 
lish Colonies of N. A. Jno. Hop. Studies in Hist, and Polit. 
Science. 2:1-57. No. 10. 1884. Bait, 1884. 

Chastellux, Marquis de, Francois Jean — Voyage de M. le Cheva- 
lier de Chastellux en Amerique. 1785. 

Confederate Publications in the Confederate Museum, Bibliog- 
raphy of some. Calendar of Confederate Papers. I9C§, 
pp. 501-65. _ 

Christy, David — Cotton is King; or. The Culture of Cotton, and 
its Relation to Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, and 



478 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

also to the Free Colored People of the United States, and to 
those who hold that Slavery is in itself Sinful. _ N. Y., 1856. 

Claiborne, John F. H. — Mississippi as a Province, Territory, 
and State. Miss., 1880. 

Clarke, James Freeman — Memorial and Biographical Sketches. 
Boston, 1878. 

Clay, Mrs. Clement — A Belle of the Fifties. Memoirs of Mrs. 
Clay of Alabama, covering Social and Political Life in Wash- 
ington and the South, 1853-66. Gathered and edited by Ada 
Sterling. N. Y., 1904. 

Clay, Henry — Life of. By George D. Prentice. Hartford, 1831. 

Works of. Edited by Calvin Colton. Introductions 

by T. B. Reed and William McKinley. 10 vols. N. Y., 1904, 

Life of. By Carl Schurz. [Am. Statesmen Series.] 

2 vols. Boston, 1887. 

Clemens, Samuel L. [Mark Twain.] Life on the Mississippi. 
Boston, 1883. 

Confederate Constitution, The. An Address by R. H. Smith. 
Mobile, March 30, 1861. 

Confederate States of America: A Compilation of the Messages 
and Papers of the Confederacy, including the Diplomatic Cor- 
respondence: 1861-1865. Edited by James D. Richardson. 
Nashville, 1906. 

Conference for Education. Published by Southern Education 
Board. 1901-1909. [Place of publication changes.] 

Constitution of the United States, Pamphlets on the. Published 
during its Discussion by the People. 1787-1788. Edited, with 
notes and bibliography, by Paul Leicester Ford. Brooklyn, 



Cooke, John Esten — ^Virginia. A History of the People With 
a Supplementary Chapter by William Garrott Brown. Boston, 
1903. 

Wearing of the Grey: Personal Portraits, Scenes, and 

Adventures of the late War, with dashing charges, toilsome 
marches, sacrifices and sufferings of the Boys in Grey. N. Y., 
1887. 

Coon, Charles L. — The Beginnings of Public Education in North 
Carolina. A Documentary History (1790- 1840). 2 vols. 
Raleigh, 1910. 

Curry, J. L. M. — Civil History of the Government of the Con- 
federate States; with some personal reminiscences. Richmond, 
^ 1901. 

• ■ History of the Peabody Education Fund. 1898. 

/ ' • Curry Memorial. Conference of Education. 1903. 

Southern States of the American Union. Considered 

in their Relation to the Constitution of the United States, 
s^ and to the resulting Union. Richmond, 1895. 

Cutler, James E. — Lynch Law : An Investigation into the History 
of Lynching in the United States. N. Y., 1905. 
V Dabney, T. S. G. — Life of. A Southern Planter. By Mrs. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 479 

Susan [Dabney] Smedes. [Book reviewed by W. E. Gladstone: 
19th Century, 26:984.] London, 1889. 

Danvers, John Thierry — A Picture of a Republican Magistrate. 
N. Y., 1808. 

Davidson, James Wood — The Living Writers of the South. 
N. Y., 1869. 

Davis, Life of, with a Secret History of the Southern Confeder- 
acy. By E. A. Pollard. ^ Atlanta, 1869. 

Davis, Jefferson, Prison Life of, embracing Details and Incidents 
in his Captivity. By J. J. Craven. N. Y., 1866. 

Life of. By F. H. Alfriend. Cincinnati, 1868. 

History, Short, of the Confederate States of America. 

1890. 

Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 2 vols. 

N. Y., 1881. 

Life and Reminiscences of. By distinguished Men of 

his Time. (Ed.) J. W. Daniel. 

A Memoir by his wife, Mrs. Varina Jefferson Davis. 

1890. 

Davis, Reuben — Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians. 
1891. 

Deane, Charles [Ed.] — Smith's True Relation of Virginia. Pref- 
ace. 1866. 
/-". De Bow, J. D. B. — Industrial Resources of the Southern and 
Western States. 3 vols. New Orleans, 1852-53. [See also the 
Magazine for statistics.] 

De Menii, Alexander N. — The Literature of the Louisiana Terri- 
tory. St. Louis, 1904. 

Derby, James C. — Fifty Years among Authors, Books, and Pub- 
lishers. N. Y., 1884. 
y*",sDe Tocqueville, Alexis — Democracy in America. Translated by 
X Henry Reeve, Esq. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1836. 

Dew, Thomas R. — An Essay on Slavery. Richmond, 1849. 

Dowd, Jerome — The Negro Races. A Sociological Study. N. Y., 
1908.^ 

Du Bois, W. E. B. — Bibliography, Select, of the American Negro. 
y^ Atlanta University Pub. No. i. Atlanta, 1901. 

^"^ Enforcement of Slave-trade Laws. Am. Hist. Assoc. 

Report. 1891, pp. 161-74. 

From Servitude to Service. Atlanta University Pub. 

1905, pp. 153-97. 

Souls of Black Folks: Essays and Sketches. Chicago, 

1903. 

Suppression of African Slave-trade to the United 

States of America, 1638- 1870. Harvard Historical Studies, 
vol. I, 1896. 

The Negro Artisan ; report of a social study . . . 

with the proceedings of the Seventh Conference for the Study 
of the Negro Problems, held at Atlanta University on May 27, 
1902. Atlanta University Publications, No. 7. 



48o BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Negro Church; report of a social study. Bibli- 
ography, pp. 6-8. Atlanta University Publications, No. 8, 

1903- 

The Negro Common School. Sixth Conference, May 

28, 1901. Atlanta University Publications, No. 6. 

The Philadelphia Negro; a social study, with a special 

report on domestic service, by Isabel Eaton. Penn. Univ. Pub. 
Polit. Econ. and Public Law Series, No. 14, 1899. 

The Talented Tenth. [See "The Negro Problem," 

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Du Bose, John W. — Life and Times of W. L. Yancey: a history 
of Political Parties in the United States, 1834-1864. Bir- 
mingham, 1892. 
y 1^" Dunning, William Archibald — Constitution of the United States 
in the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1860-67. Dissertation, 
Columbia College, New York. 1885. 

Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction, and related 

topics. N. Y., 1898. 

Duyckinck, E. A. — Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 2 vols. 
N. Y., 1855-56. 

Echoes from the South. (African Slavery — The Comer-stone 
of the Southern Confederacy.) E. A. Pollard (ed.). Savan- 
nah, March 22, 1861. 

Eggleston, George Cary — American War Ballads and Lyrics. 
1899. 

A Rebel's Recollections. N. Y., 1887. 

^ Recollections of a Varied Life. N. Y., 1910. 

The Confederate War: Its Causes and its Conduct 

A Narrative and Critical History. 2 vols. N. Y., 1910. 

Elliot, Jonathan — Debates of the several State Conventions on 
the Adoption of the Federal Constitution of 1787. 4 vols., and 
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492 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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INDEX 



Adams, H. A., quoted, I39- 
Age, The, magazine of Civil 

War period, ^2y. 
" Aide-de-Camp," McCabe's, 

327- 
Alderman, Edwm A., 141; 

quoted, 220, 434; cited, 447, 

454- 

Allen, James Lane, 169, 170, 
463, 464, 473, 474. 

"All Quiet along the Poto- 
mac To-night," 346. 

Allston, Washington, 224, 2^2. 

Alsop, George, 41-44. 

" Ambrose Letters on the Re- 
bellion," Kennedy's, 251, 

" American Hearts of Oak,'* 
Hewlings', 157. 

" Anas," Jefferson's, 135. 

"Ancient Law, The," Miss 
Glasgow's, 462. 

"Annals of Quodlibet," Ken- 
nedy's, 251. 

"Art of Poesy," Jefferson's, 
138. 

"Ashby," Mrs. Preston's, 345. 

" Ashby," Thompson's, 353. 

"Ashes of Glory," 342. 

"At the Mercy of Tiberius," 
Mrs. Wilson's, 331, 335. 

" Audrey," Mary Johnston's, 
470. 

Audubon, John James, 224. 

" Autobiography," Johnston's 
461. 

"Autography," Poe's, 261. 

Avary, M. L., 320. 



B 
Bagby, ^. W., 237. 



Baker, Ray Stannard, 441-442. 

" Balcony Stories," Grace 
King's, 467. 

Baldwin, J. G., 113, 178, 230- 
233, 338; quoted, 206-207, 
210. 

"Ballad of Trees and the 
Master," Lanier's, 374. 

Ballagh, Dr., quoted, 6, 95. 

"Baltimore Book, The," 255. 

" Barn Swallow," Kennedy's, 
329. 

"Basis of Ascendancy," Mur- 
phy's, 218, 433, 438. 

Bassett, John Spencer, 458, 

459- 

" Battleground, The," Ellen 
Glasgow's, 299, 320, 463. 

"Battle of Bunker's Hill, 
The," 158. 

"Battle of King's Mountain,'* 
157. 

" Beauchampe," Simms', 244. 

" Beaux and Belles of the Six- 
ties," De Leon's, 352. 

"Beechenbrook," Mrs. Pres- 
ton's, 413. 

Berkeley, Sir William, 9, 45, 

lOI. 

" Belles of Williamsburg, 

The," 156. 
" Bench and Bar of Georgia," 

Miller's, 227. 
" Beulah," Mrs. Wilson's, 335. 
Beverley, Robert, 58-62. 
Bibles in Civil War period, 

328. 
" Bill Arp," character of, 236. 
" Bivouac of the Dead," 

O'Hara's, 345. 
Blair, James, 15, 50-57. 
Bland, Richard, 145. 



501 



502 



INDEX 



Bledsoe, 216, 309. 

" Blockade Runner," Watson's, 
323- 

" Blue-Grass Region of Ken- 
tucky," Allen's, 464. 

"Bonnie Blue Flag," 311, 342, 

343. 

" Bonny Brown Hand," 
Hayne's, 393. 

Bowen, R. A., on Timrod, 407. 

"Boy's Froissart," "Boy's 
King Arthur," etc., Lanier's, 
382. 

Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 
158, 237-23S. 

"Bride of the Mistletoe," Al- 
len's, 463. 

Broadway Journal, The, 288. 

Brown, W. G., 218, 220. 

Browne, William Hand, biog- 
raphy of Stephens by, 307, 
461. 

Browning, Lanier on, 367. 

Burk, John, 158. 

"Bunker Hill; or. The Death 
of Warren," 158. 

Burnett, Mrs. Francis Hodg- 
son, 471. 

Burton, W. E., 285. 

Burwell Papers, the, 45. 

Byrd, Evelyn, 73, 149. 

Byrd, William, 15, 17, 57, 66- 
67. 

Byrd family, the, 66-73. 



Cable, George W., 5, 219, 299, 
320, 429, 434-435, 436, 464* 
465, 467, 473- 

Cairnes, J. Elliot, 170. 

Calhoun, John C, 195, 202, 
203, 207-211. 

'• Candidates, The," drama, 

159. 

"Carlyles, The," Mrs. Harri- 
son's, 471. 

" Carolina," Timrod's, 353. 
386, 405. 

Carr, Dabney, 194. 



Carruthers, William, 253. 

Gary, Jenny, 343. 

"Cavalier, The," Cable's, 465- 

"Cavaliers of Virginia," Car- 
ruthers', 254. 

Cawein, Madison, 472. 

" Centennial Cantata," Lani- 
er's, 359, 376, 449-450., 

Century Magazine, articles in, 
on the South, 456. 

" Changed- Brides," Mrs. 
Southworth's, 337. 

" Charlemont," Simms', 244. 

" Charleston,'* poem, 157. 

"Charleston Book, The," 255. 

Chesnutt, Charles W., 447- 
448, 470. 

Cheves, Langdon, 210-212. 

" Christ in the Camp," Jones's, 
318. 

"Christmas," Timrod's, 405- 

" Clansman, The," Dixon's, 

441. 
Clay, C C, 215. 
Clay, Henry, 206, 207-213. 
Clay-Clopton, Mrs., 223, 297, 

320. 
Clergymen, books by, 226-227. 
" Colonel Carter of Carters- 

ville," Smith's, 47i- 
"Col. Simon Suggs," charac- 
ter of, 233. 
Compilations, 255. 
" Conquered Banner," Father 

Ryan's, 342, 351- 
Cook, Ebenezer, 46-49. 
Cooke, John Esten, 23, 51, 298, 

320, 326; quoted, 99, 328; 

final days of, 328-330. 
Cooke, Philip Pendleton, 271. 
Cooper, J. Fenimore, Simms 

contrasted with, 239-240. 
Cooper, Thomas, 180-181. 
"Corn," Lanier's, 372-373- 
"Cottage on the Hill," 

Hayne's, 394. 
"Cotton Boll, The," Timrod's, 

405-406. 
" Cotton is King," pamphlet, 

216. 



INDEX 



503 



Craddock, Charles Egbert, 167, 

464-468, 473. 
Crafts, William, 221, 272. 
Crawford, William H., 199, 

201. 
" Creoles of Louisiana," Ca- 
ble's, 464. 
"Crystal, The," Lanier's, 374, 

390. 
" Cry to Arms," Timrod's, 344, 

353. 40s. 
Curry, J. L. M., 220, 312-316, 

338, 429, 431, 432, 441; 

quoted, 322-323. 



Dabney, Richard, 158, 197" 198. 

Dabney, Virginius, 198. 

Dalcho, Frederick, 226. 

Dandridge, Danske, 472. 

Davies, Samuel, 99-100, I13. 

Davis, John, 100. 

Davis, Mrs. M. E. M., 471. 

Davis, Norah, 466. 

Davis, Reuben, 227. 

" Death of General Montgom- 
ery at the Siege of Quebec, 
The," 158. 

"Death of Stuart," Thomp- 
son's, 354. 

De Bow, 169, 171, 177. 

De Bow's Commercial Review, 
183-184. 

De Leon, T. C, 352. 

" Deliverance, The," Miss 
Glasgow's, 463. 

De Tocqueville, Alexis, 184. 

" Devota," Mrs. Wilson's, 334. 

Dew, Thomas R., 216. 

" Disfranchisement," Ches- 

nutt's, 447. 

"Dixie," 258, 343, 344- 

Dixon, Thomas, 441. 

"Don Miff," Dabney* s, 198. 

Dorsey, Sarah Anne, 337. 

Drama of Revolutionary pe- 
riod, 158; of Ante-bellum 
period, 272-273. 

Drayton, John, 154. 



Drayton, William Henry, 153, 

154- 

"Dr. Sevier," Cable's, 465. 

DuBois, W. E. B., 421, 422, 
443, 445-446; criticism of 
Booker T. Washington's the- 
ories by, 444-445. 

" Dukesborough Tales," John- 
ston's, 461. 

Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 469. 



Educational system in the 
early South, 101-106. 

Edwards, Harry Stillwell, 470. 

Eggleston, George Gary, 320, 
322. 

Elliott, Sarah Barnwell, 471. 

Elliott, Stephen, 224. 

Emmett, Daniel Decatur, 343. 

"English Novel, The," Lani- 
er's, Z7^, Z77, 381, 382, 383. 

" Ethnogenesis," Timrod's, 405. 



" Farmer Man," Ticknor's, 410. 
Faulkner, Charles James, 182. 
" Female Patriotism," drama, 

158. 
Fiske, John, quoted, 135. 
Fitzgerald, Bishop, 226. 
Flash, Henry Lynden, 345, 348. 
" Florida," Lanier's, 361, 2>7^. 
" Flower de Hundred," Mrs. 

Harrison's, 471. 
" Flush Times in Alabama,'* 

Baldwin's, 178, 231-232. 
Folk-lore and folk-songs, 

negro, 256-257, 468-470. 
" Following the Color-Line," 

441. 
Forsyth, quoted, 186. 
Fortier, Alcee, 466-467. 
Foster, Stephen C, 257. 
Fox, John, Jr., 167, 464, 465, 

467, 468, 473. 
Freedmen's Bureau, the, 421, 

422, 423. 



S04 



INDEX 



"Free Joe" Harris's, 47a 
Freneau, Philip, 115. 



"Gabriel Tolliver," Harris's, 

471. 
"Gander Pulling, The," 235. 
Garden, Alexander, 81-84. 
Gayarre, C. E. A., 218, 220. 
"George Balcombe," Tucker's, 

253-254. 

" Georgia Scenes," Long- 
street's, 178, 234-235, d6i. 

" Georgians, The," Harben's, 
436, 462. 

Glasgow, Ellen, 183, 299, 320, 
473 ; special consideration 
of, 462-463; the verse of, 
471. 

Goetzel, S. H., 327. 

"Gold Bug," Poe's, 260. 

Gooch, Governor, 9. 

" Good News from Virginia," 
Whitaker's, 30-31. 

Gosse, Philip Henry, 199-201. 

Goulding, Francis R., 337. 

Grady, Henry W., 337, 450 
453. 

Graham, George R., 285. 

" Grandissimes, The," Cable's, 

465. 
Griswold, Rufus W., 285. 
"Guilty or Not Guilty," Dimi- 

try's, 327. 
"Guy Rivers," Simms', 245. 



H 



Hammond, John, 39-41, 216. 
"Hanford," Tucker's, 114. 
Harben, Will N., 436, 461, 462, 

466, 473. 
Harby, Isaac, 273. 
Harper's Magazine, articles in, 

on the South, 456. 
Harris, G. W., 236. 
Harris, Joel Chandler, 234, 

236, 338, 466, 468, 470, 471. 
Harris, Mrs. L. H., 460. 



Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 471. 

Harrison, James, cited, 285. 

Hawks, Bishop, 226. 

Hawthorne, N., analogy be- 
tween Poe and, 290. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 212, 
340, 341; special considera- 
tion of, 384-397- 

Helper, H. R., 213-215. 

Henry, Patrick, 69, 108, no, 
III, 112; special considera- 
tion of, 1 16- 123; mentioned 
in connection with Wash- 
ington, 126. 

Hentz, Caroline Lee, 337. 

Hewlings, J. W., 157. 

" Hills, The," Ticknor's, 411. 

"Hireling and the Slave," 
Grayson's, 344. 

Hooper, Johnson Jones, 236. 

Hope, James Barron, 353, 355- 
357. 

"Horse-Shoe Robinson," Ken- 
nedy's, 244, 250-251. 

Houston, Sam, 229. 

" How the Times Served the 
Virginians," Baldwin's, 233. 

Humor and humorists of 
Ante-bellum period, 229-238. 



" Impending Crisis," Helper's, 

213-215. 
" Industrial Resources of the 

South," De Bow's, 184. 
" Inez," Mrs. Wilson's, 331, 

335- 
" Infelice," Mrs. Wilson's, 

331, 334. 
Ingle, Edward, quoted, 167, 

184. 
Iredell, James, 105. 



Jackson, Andrew, 210. 
Jackson, Henry R., 348. 
Jamison, Mrs. C. V. S., 467. 
Jeanes, Anna T., 430. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 109, 117, 



INDEX 



505 



118, 119; Special considera- 
tion of, 130-142. 

" John Marvel, Assistant," 
Page's, 464. 

Johns Hopkins University, 
Lanier's connection with, 
381-382. 

Johnson, James Gibson, 337. 

Johnston, Mary, 470. 

Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 
234, 307, 338; special con- 
sideration of, 461-462. 

Jonas, S. A., 347. 

Jones, C C, 218. 

Jones, Hugh, 52, 62-65. 

Jones, J. W., 318. 

" Jones's Private Argjrment," 
Lanier's, 385. 

"Journal of War Times," 
Mrs. Preston's, 414. 

" Jud Brownin's Account of 
Rubinstein's Playing," 237. 

"Juvenalia," Hayne's, 391, 



K 



Kemble, Fannie, 170, 223. 

Kennedy, John P., Life of 
Wirt by, 192, 194; men- 
tioned, 220, 230; special con- 
sideration of, 247-252, Poe's 
meeting with, 282-283. 

Kent, Charles W., cited, 374. 

" Kentucky Cardinal," Allen's, 

463. 
Key, Francis Scott, 258. 
King, Grace, 464, 465, 467. 
"Kinkaid's Battery," Cable's, 

299, 320, 465. 
" Knights of the Horseshoe," 

Carruthers', 254. 
Ku Klux Klan, the, 420, 424, 

425. 



" Lady Baltimore," Wister's, 

473. 
"Lady Jane," Mrs. Jamison's, 

467. 



Lamar, L. Q. C, 450. 

Lamar, M. B., 271. 

Lanier, Sidney, 180, 226, 252, 
268-269, 272, 337, 341, 342, 
449-450. 453; Thomas Jeffer- 
son contrasted with, I39; 
special consideration of, 358- 

383. 

Laureate of the Lost Cause, 
Father Ryan as, 349- 

Laurens, Henry, 146-148. 

Law, primogeniture of, in the 
South, 113-114- 

Lawson, John, 79-81. 

"Lays of the Palmetto," 
Simms', 262-263. 

" Leah and Rachel," Ham- 
mond's, 39. 

Le Contes, the, 224, 360. 

Lee, Henry, funeral oration on 
Washington by, 124. 

Lee, Robert E., 326, 412. 

Legare, Hugh S., 103, 212, 221- 
222, 271. 

"Leoni di Monota and Other 
Poems," Hope's, 355. 

"Letters of the British Spy," 
Wirt's, 154, 169, 191. 

Le Vert, Octavia Walton, 222- 
224. 

" Lewis Rand," Mary John- 
ston's, 470. 

Libraries in the South, 459. 

" Little Giffin of Tennessee," 
345, 410. 

"Little Sergeant Banks," Mo- 
ses', 345. 

Lodge, H. C, estimate of 
Washington by, 126, 127. 

Longstreet, Augustus B., 178, 
233-235, 338. 

"Lorena," Webster's, 327, 342. 

"Louisiana Studies," Fortier's, 
466-467. 

Loveman, Robert, 472. 

" Lower South in American 
History," Brown's, 218. 

Lowndes, Rawlins, 210-212. 

" Lyric of Action," Hayne's, 
395. 



5o6 



INDEX 



M 



" Macaria," Mrs. Wilson's, 327, 

335. 
McClurg, James, as a poet, 156. 
" Macdonald's Raid," Hayne's, 

397. 
McDuffie, George, 199, 201. 
"Madame Delphine," Cable's, 

467. 
Madison, Dolly, 149. 
Madison, James, 143-144, 145. 
Magazine articles on the South, 

455-456. 
Magazine literature, 182-184. 
Magazines of Civil War pe- 
riod, 327. 
"Major Jones," character of, 

23S-236. 
" Marooners* Island," Gould- 

ing's, 337. 
Marshall, John, "Life of 

Washington" by, no, 137, 

144. 
" Marshes of Glynn," Lanier's, 

"Martin Faber," Simms', 246. 
Martineau, Harriet, 169, 184. 
" Maryland, my Maryland," 

258, 342. 
Maury, Ann, 226. 
Maury, Matthew Fontainef^ 

224-226. 
Meade, Bishop, 226. 
Meek, Alexander B., 168, 176, 

183, 266-267; quoted, 174, 

175, 178, 180. 
Mellen, G. F., cited, 230, 231. 
" Memoirs of a Nullifier," 

Cooper's, 181. 
" Memories," Mrs. Ramsay's, 

151. 
" Memories of a Huguenot 

Family," Ann Maury's, 226. 
Mertin, G. F., 442. 
Methodism in the South, 83. 
Michel, Richard, 388. 
Mims, Biography of Lanier by, 

364, 378, 379- 
Ministers, books by, 226-227. 



" Mocking-Bird," Hayne's, 396. 
" Mocking-Bird," Pike's, 270. 
" Modern Chivalry," Bracken- 
ridge's, 237-238. 
" Moral Change," Simms', 264. 
Morgan, Senator, 450. 
Moses, Dr., " Little Sergeant 

Banks" by, 345., 
" Moziz Addums," character 

of, 237. 
"MS. foiind in a Bottle," 

Foe's, 282. 
Munford, Robert, 159. 
Murfree, Mary N., see Crad- 

dock. 
Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 9, 

183, 218, 220, 426, 432, 435- 

447. 



N 



•' Nature-Metaphors," Lanier's, 

366. 
" New Orleans," Grace King's, 

464. 
"New Orleans Book, The," 

2SS. 

Newport, Colonel, 23. 

"New South," Grad/s ad- 
dress, 452, 

"Nights with Uncle Remus," 
Harris's, 383, 466, 468. 

Norwood, Henry, 36-37. 

" Notes on Virginia," Jeffer- 
son's, 134. 

Novels and novelists of Ante- 
bellum period, 239 ff. ; pres- 
ent-day, 461-474. 



"Octopus," Norris's, 463. 

" Ode to the Confederate 

Dead," Timrod's, 405. 
Ogden, Robert C, 431. 
O'Hara, Theodore, 272, 345. 
"Old Bachelor," Wirt's, 194- 
"Old Churches, Ministers and 

Families of Virginia," 

Meade's, 226. 



INDEX 



507 



"Old Creole Days," Cable's, 

465. 

"Old Gentleman of the Black 
Stock," Page's, 172. 

Oldmixon, 60. 

" Old South, The," Page's, 93, 
464. 

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 170- 
171, 213. 

Oratory, in Southern litera- 
ture, 107 ff. ; of Ante-bellum 
period, 191-217; of Civil 
War period, 295-314; Gra- 
dy's, 450-453. 

"Our Faith in '61," Requier's, 
342. 

" Ovid Bolus, Esq.," Baldwin's, 
232-233. 

Owen, Thomas M., 184. 



Page, Thomas Nelson, 93, 153, 
172, 218, 237, 446-448, 461, 
471. 473; as the successor of 
J. P. Kennedy, 249; the suc- 
cessor of J. E. Cooke, 329; 
effect of Northern residence 
on, 464; as a poet, 471. 

Page, Walter H., 438-440. 

Palmer, J. W., 345. 

" Partisan, The," Simms', 244. 

" Partisan Leader," Beverley 
Tucker's, 1 14, 177, 252-253, 
298. 

" Party Leaders," Baldwin's, 
113, 206, 210, 232. 

Peabody Education Fund, 427- 
430. 

Peck, Samuel Minturn, 472. 

" Pelham," Randall's, 353. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 112, 113. 

Penn, Shadrach, 228-229. 

Penn Monthly, The, 286. 

Percy, George, 23, 24-26. 

Petigru, James L., 196, 199, 
212, 213. 

Pickett, Albert J., 218. 

Pike, Albert, 184, 270, 272, 346, 
348. 



Pinckney, Charles, L13. 

Pinkney, William, 211, 271. 

Plantation melodies, 256-257, 
468-470. 

" Planter's Northern Bride, 
A," Mrs. Hentz's, 337. 

Pleasants, John H., 212. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 97, 130, 149, 
252, 256-257; estimate of W. 
Q. Simms, 246-247; as an ex- 
ponent of Southern poetry, 
259-260; contrasted with 
Simms as a poet, 262 ; spe- 
cial consideration of, 276-291. 

" Poem Outlines," Lanier's, 
367. 

"Poeta in Rure," Ticknor's, 
41X. 

Poetry and poets of the Revo- 
tionary period, 154-159; of 
Civil War period, 339 ff; 
present-day, 471-473. 

Pory, John, 32-34. 

Power, Tyrone, 184, 223. 

"Prayers of the South," 
Father Ryan's, 350. 

Prentice, George D., 227-229, 
272. 

" Prenticeana," 229. 

" Present South," Murphy's, 
435, 437-438- 

Preston, Mrs. Margaret Jun- 
kin, 320, 340, 341, 345, 384, 
390; special consideration of, 
412-414. 

"Prophet of the Great Smoky 
Mountain," Craddock's, 468. 

Pryor, Mrs. Roger A., 297, 
320. 

" Psalm of the West," Lanier's, 
375r 378. 

Publishers of Civil War pe- 
riod, 226-227. 



"Raclads, The," Crafts*, 272. 
Ramsay, David, 151-154. 
Ramsay, Martha Laurens, 150- 
152. 



So8 



INDEX 



Randall, James Ryder, 344 
353. 

Randolph, John, 112, 206-207, 
213. 

"Rationale of Verse," Tim- 
rod's, 408. 

"Raven, The," Poe's, 288. 

Ravenel, Mrs., cited, 212. 

" Rebel's Recollections," Eg- 
gleston's, 322. 

" Rebuilding of Old Common- 
wealths," W. H. Page's, 439. 

** Recollections of Mississippi," 
Davis's, 227. 

"Red Book, The," 248. 

" Red Rock," Page's, 471. 

Reese, Lizette Woodworth, 
472. 

"Reign of Law," Allen's, 463, 
474. 

Requier, Augustus Julian, 342. 

" Resignation," Tucker's, 114. 

" Retirement," Timrod's, 405. 

" Retribution," Mrs. South- 
worth's, 337. 

" Retrospects and Prospects,'* 
Lanier's, 366. 

Rhodes, James Ford, 170. 

Rich, R., 23-24. 

Rives, Amelie, 471. 

" Rob of the Bowl," Kennedy's, 
251. 

Rolfe, John, 2$. 

" Romance of a Plain Man," 
Miss Glasgow's, 462-463. 

" Romantic Passages in South- 
western History," 168. 

" Rose Morals," Lanier's, 373. 

Russell, Irwin, 472. 

Russell's Magazine, 388. 

Rutledge, John, 115. 

Ryan, Abram Joseph, 346, 352, 
394- 



"St. Elmo," Mrs. Wilson's, 

335. 
Sandys, Sir Edwin, 14, 27, 32, 

34. 



Sandys, George, 34-36, 54. 

Schurz, Carl, 419. 

" Science of English Verse," 

Lanier's, 37o, 381, 382, 383. 
Scrihner's Magazine, articles 

in, on the South, 455-456. 
Sears, Barnas, 428-429. 
Seawell, Molly Elliott, 471. 
" Sentinel Songs," Father 

Ryan's, 350. 
" Shakspere and His Fore- 
runners," Lanier's, 366, 380. 
Shaler, N. S., quoted, 12; cited, 

230, 453; John Esten Cook 

contrasted with, 329-330. 
" Siege of Savannah," 157. 
" Silence," Simms', 264. 
"Silent South," Cable's, 434- 

435. 
Simms, J. Marion, 224. 
Simms, William Gilmore, 168, 

176, 205, 216, 220, 221, 388; 

special consideration of, 239- 

247; contrasted with Poe as 

a poet, 262. 
Slater, John F., 430. 
Smedes, Susan D., 297. 
Smith, Charles H., 236. 
Smith, F. Hopkinson, 471. 
Smith, John, 17, 19-23; Stra- 

chey indebted to, 27-28. 
Society for the Propagation 

of the Gospel, 104. 
Songs, plantation, of negroes, 

256-257, 468-470; of Civil 

War period, 327, 339-348. 
Sonnets, Simms', 264-265, 269; 

of Paul Hamilton Hayne, 

395-397; Timrod's, 408. 
" Sonny," Ruth McEnery 

Stuart's, 470. 
" Sot-weed Factor, The," 

Cook's, 46-48. 
" Sot-weed Redivivus," 49. 
"Souls of Black Folk," Du 

Bois', 444-445- 
" South in the Building of the 

Nation, The," 460. 
" Southern Cross, The," 327, 

345. 



INDEX 



509 



Southern Field and Fireside, 

327, 354. 
Southern Illustrated News, 

327. 

Southern Literary Gazette, 388. 

Southern Literary Messenger, 
183-184, 274; Poe's connec- 
tion with, 283-284. 

Southern Monthly, 327. 

" Southern Planter, A," 198. 

Southern Punch, 2)27. 

Southern Review, The, 183, 
221. 

"Southern Sidelights," Ingle's, 
184. 

Southern Tract Society, 328. 

" Southrons, hear your country 
call you," 346. 

Southworth, Mrs. E. D. E. N., 

2>2>7' 

Sparks, Jared, 124-125. 

" Speckled Bird, A," Mrs. Wil- 
son's, 334, 335. 

Spotswood, Governor, 56-57, 
72-7Z. 

" Spring," Timrod's, 405. 

Stanton, Frank L., 472. 

** Star-spangled Banner," 258. 

Stedman, E. C, on Poe, 256- 

2S7' 
Stephens, Alexander H., 297, 

306-310. 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 419. 
Stith, William, 19, 35, 78-79. 
"Storm-Signal," Mertin's, 442 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 169- 

170. 
Strachey, William, 17, 19, 26- 

30. 
" Strange True Stories of 

Louisiana," Cable's, 467. 
Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 470. 
Stylus, The, 286. 
•* Summer Bower," Timrod's, 

405- 
** Sunrise," Lanier*s, 373. 
" Surrey of Eagle's Nest," 

Cooke's, 329. 
" Sut Lovengood,'* character 

of, 2z6. 



* Swallow Bam," Kennedy's, 

248-249. 
" Sword of Robert Lee," Father 

Ryan's, 35 1- 
" Symphony," Lanier's, 373, 

374, 2>7^-Z77* Z^S- 



Tabb, John Banister, 349, 363. 
Taber, WilHam R, 212. 
Tailfer, Patrick, 84-86. 
" Taking the Census," Bagby's, 

237- 
** Tales of the Grotesque and 

Arabesque," Poe's, 285. 
"Tallulah and Other Poems," 

Jackson's, 348. 
** Teague O'Reagan," character 

of, 238. 
Terhune, Mrs., 337. 
Text-books of Civil War 

period, 327-328. 
" Theory of Poetry," Timrod's, 

407-408. 
Thompson, John Reuben, 353- 

354. 
Thompson, Maurice, visit of, 

to Hayne, 393-394; cited, 410, 

412. 
Thompson, William Tappan, 

235-236. 
"Through the Pass," Mrs. 

Preston's, 414. 
Ticknor, Francis Orrery, 345, 

382, 409-412. 
" Tiger Lilies," Lanier's, 361, 

362, 363, 365- 
Timrod, Henry, 341, 344, 346, 

353, 384, 386, 398-409. 
Timrod, William H., 399. 
" To Have and to Hold." Mary 

Johnston's, 470. 
" Toinette's Philip," Mrs. Jami- 
son's, 467. 
Toombs, Robert, 297, 302-306. 
Tourgee, Albion W., 457. 
" Trail of the Lonesome Pine," 

Fox's, 468. 
Trent, W. P., mentioned, 108, 



5IO 



INDEX 



171, 271, 295, 388, 458; Life 
of Simms by, 240, 244, 246. 
Troup, George M., 201-205, 

303- 
Tucker, Beverley, 114, 177, 

252-253, 298. 
Tucker, George, 194, 
Tucker, St. George, 114, 121, 

156. 
Tulane University, 430. 
" Two Runaways," Edwards', 

470. 
Tyler, Moses Coit, references 

to, 15, 18-19, 46, 57. 



U 



"Uncle Remus," Harris's, 466, 
468; Lanier's opinion of, 383. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 169. 

University of Virginia, 55 ; Jef- 
ferson the founder of, 131, 
138-141; Poe's life at, 279- 
280. 

" Up from Slavery," Washing- 
ton's, 444. 

"Vashti," Mrs. Wilson's, 336. 
Virginia, Beverley's "History" 

of, 58-62. 
" Virginia Comedians," Cooke's, 

329- 
" Virginia Heart of Oaks," 156. 
" Virginia Girl in the Civil 

War, A," Avary's, 320. 
" Virginian, The," Wister's 

473. 

"Virginians of the Valley,'' 
Ticknor's, 410. 

"Vision of Poesy," Timrod's, 
403-404. 

"Voice of the People, The," 
Miss Glasgow's, 463. 

* Voyage to Virginia," Nor- 
wood's, 2^. 

W 

Waddell, Moses, 199. 



"War between the States," 

Stephens', 307, 315. 
Washington, Booker T., 420- 

421, 423, 430. 
Washington, George, III, 123- 

130, 442-444. 
" Washington Ode," Hope's, 

356. 
Watterson, Henry, 228, 229, 

Z37, 451. 
" Wearing of the Gray," 

Cooke's, 320. 
Weedon, Howard, 469. 
Wecms, Life of Washington 

by, 123-124, 153. 
Welby, Mrs., 271. 
Wharton, Charles Henry, 158. 
Wharton, Edith, references to, 

334, 383. 

"Wheel of Life," Miss Glas- 
gow's, 462. 

"When this Cruel War is 
Over," 327. 

Whitaker, Alexander, 30-32. 

White, Father Andrew, 37-39. 

White, T. W., 283. 

Whitefield, George, 81-84. 

Whitman, Walt, contrasted 
with Lanier, 377-^7^. 

Wilde, Richard Henry, 205, 
259, 271, 272. 

Wilkinson, Eliza, 97, 115, 149- 
150. 

"Will and the Wing, The," 
Hayne's, 389. 

William and Mary College, 
founding of, 53-55; decline 
of, after the Revolution, 138- 
140. 

Willington School, the, 199. 

Willis, N. P., Poe's association 
with, 287-288. 

Wilson, Augusta Evans, 306, 
326, 352; special considera- 
tion of, ZZO-2>2,7- 

V.^'ingfield, Edward Maria, 23. 

Wirt, William, on Patrick 
Henry, 121, 122-123; men- 
tioned, 153, 154, 167-168, 191- 
195. 



INDEX 



511 



Wise, Henry A., 215. 
Wister, Owen, 124, 473. 
Women of the Civil War 

period, 319-322. 
Woodberry, George Edward, 

cited, 282. 
Woodrow, James, 226, 360. 
World's Work, Articles in, 

438-440. 
Wythe, Chancellor George, 102 



Yancey, W. L., 108, 185, 297, 

300-302, 305, 306-307. 
" Yemassee, The," Simms's, 

240, 245. 
Yorktown Centennial Ode, 

Hope's, 357. 
" Young Marooners," Gould- 

ing's, 337. 



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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



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